


Quabs, Quibblers, and Quotents.

by calumTraveler



Series: The Cavern Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Myst Series
Genre: A Proper AU Adaptation of the HP novels, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Chapter Specific Content Warnings in Opening Notes, Crossover, Gen, It's a Multiverse~!, Linking Book (Myst Series), Luna Lovegood is the Stranger's descendant, Pre-DRC era, We're doing this thing, We're making this happen, Yeesha is best Aunt, also some minor crossover from other properties where applicable because i just cant help myself, but primarily HP and URU, do not copy to another site, oh boy does the canon diverge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:20:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27600592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calumTraveler/pseuds/calumTraveler
Summary: On the Great Tree of Possibilities, there's as many outcomes as there are people in a world, times as many worlds as there are that exist on every branch of the tree.Luna Lovegood begins her attendance at Hogwarts with the release of the game MYST looming on the Horizon, and oh, isn't that going to be a ripple on the timeline?
Series: The Cavern Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2004016
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	1. The Lovegood Family and The Proper Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Proper Prologue, and not just an observable Potential.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW:  
> Mild Homestuck References because background filler.  
> Character Death.  
> Funeral.  
> Wizarding World Nonsense.

**THE AGE OF EARTH, 1985. HAUNTSWITCH, OR. USA.**  
  
Pandora Lovegood smiled at the American woman as they both supervised their daughters playing out in the yard. "Don't worry," She said, "Xeno will be back soon and your husband will be safe and sound."  
  
"Oh, I'm sure they will be," Annette Claire-Harley nodded. "I'm just... how does one even accidentally create a portal to another world like this? Jake's a mechanist, not a- a- what did you call it? Wizard??"  
  
Pandora laughed, "Oh, no. Linking is not a magical science at all. It's a technology like any other." She reached out and took her tea cup from the table, sipping at it. "And just like any technology," she continued one she'd swallowed, as was only polite when it came to tea. "With the right materials, and the right happenstance, anyone can stumble into it at all."  
  
The Wizarding World had no idea what it was dealing with, she neglected to say, because the Claire-Harley family were not Wizards. Not as of present, atleast. Not a lick of magical ancestry in their blood line.  
  
D'ni, on the other hand...  
  
The Harley Branch of the family, as far as Pandora had uncovered, had D'ni roots stretching back to sometime before the Fall- when some adventurers, hearing of the Surface world that Ti'anna had come from, decided to ascend to the surface to see what it was all about. Humanoid beings being humanoid beings, quite a few decided to make love indiscriminately, and a decent chunk of those D'ni adventurers did decide to settle down on the Surface permanently when those indescressions led to new life.  
  
Jake Harley stumbling upon Linking Technology of his own accord around 200 years later was not surprising in the least. It was just in the blood of these people.  
  
Pandora was a natural born witch- ostensibly from the British Isles. She'd gone to Hogwarts, and met a rather charming, unkempt man who claimed to be descended from an explorer who traveled worlds. Her Xenophilius, dear sweet bumbling Xenophilius, had charmed her off the bat with his clever words and impossible tales...  
  
Which he'd proven to be accurate the minute he offered her a book that swept her away from Hogwarts for their first date, taking her to a fantastical world where there were emerald walls of rocks hanging in the sky like rings encircling an entire planet. The Moons were bright red and azure blue, and the stars- Oh the STARS.  
  
Even now she found she lacked the words to describe them even though the Age of Astrologica was one she still visited frequently just to see the whole thing anew with fresh eyes.  
  
Much like her namesake, Pandora had found she'd opened a box of forbidden things, and she wanted to know more.  
  
Needless to say, Pandora wanted to know more about these other worlds- so much more- and had hedged her bets and hitched her trailer to the seeming madman that was Xenophilius Quibbler.   
  
He'd taken her name in the marriage. It made sense, given that his family had been Muggle Born up until he'd gotten the letter to Hogwarts. And that in and of itself had been a fifty-fifty split given that his family held dual residence in both the United States and the United Kingdom.   
  
That had just been another oddity that Pandora wanted to uncover more of. It was rare for Wizards to split their lives between the Muggle and Magical realms, let alone split it between countries on a single world.   
  
But Xeno's family were travelers, explorers, adventurers... and problem solvers.  
  
It'd become something of a Duty for his family, stretching past generations and various last names, to find themselves involved in situations that caused people trouble, or be asked to investigate things that weren't seemingly dangerous only for the danger to spring upon them suddenly...  
  
In all honestly, Pandora never had any regrets about her life choices. She loved experimenting with Magic as it was- learning new spells and creating even newer ones- the risk was the reward in her eyes. If she learned something new, she gained something grand.  
  
Everything was a learning experience, even days like today when the wife of an Oregon Company's CEO/Head Inventor reached out to Xeno and requested he find her Husband who had gone missing.  
  
Missing how?  
  
Oh, by accidentally building a metal device that generated a portal field that Linked him to an unknown destination. And, of course, Jake Harley had no idea he'd needed to create a Return Book first.  
  
The first thing Xeno had done was write a Linking Book in the Claire-Harley Mannor's living room, and then he braved through the portal to go find Annette's wayward husband.  
  
The Linking Sound had been warped, like a Portkey, she'd realized, except even more discordant than even the usual noises.  
  
Truly, Jake Harley had created a marvel.  
  
...Was it any wonder that the Lovegood family's current ongoing research subject was how Wizards had done the exact same thing when trying to create the Veil between the Muggle and Wizarding Worlds?  
  
Luna was assuredly going to be a Witch, given both of her parent's magical natures, and she was already showing the signs of someone who was going to be a great researcher, even at the age of three already.  
  
Pandora could only just smile imagining the fantastical research subjects they'd both work on, one day.  
  
Then, her ears cottoned onto the normal, smooth yet warped noise of linking from inside the house.  
  
"Ah," Pandora smiled. "I'll go check to see if that's our husbands."  
  
Annette nodded, promising to watch the children- her own daughter Joey, age 5, and Pandora's little Luna.  
  
Pandora headed downstairs, and smiled as she saw Xeno dusting off a rather disheveled looking man she'd only seen in photographs so far- Jake Harley. He seemed a little redder than usual- sun burnt?  
  
"Next time, You really should consider sending a probe of some kind through gateways like that before stepping through yourself," Xeno was advising the man. "Still, what a remarkable Age you've discovered, Jake."  
  
"The sun is blindingly powerful!" Jake said, "Good God! Think of the potential for Solar Power if we could build a stable energy bridge between the worlds!"  
  
Xeno laughed, clapping a hand onto Jake's shoulder- sand puffed into the air. "Keep me in the loop on those developments, my friend! Just don't go adventuring through that portal of yours without me by your side next time, alright? I did not like the look of that Sand-Shark-Snake-Beast!"  
  
"Positively hungry, that one," Jake agreed with a chuckle.  
  
And then both men saw Pandora standing there, smiling, arms crossed over her chest.  
  
"Ah, my dear," Xeno stood, smiling lovingly at her. "We've returned."  
  
"So I've seen," Pandora said. "Shall I call for Annette?"  
  
Jake nodded- "And bring some water if you would? I'm a tad parched."  
  
"Also some Healing Potions from the medicine bag," Xeno added. "Jake has quite the sunburn and I don't want to see it scarring."  
  


* * *

  
**THE WIZARDING WORLD, 1989. LOVEGOOD HOUSE.**  
  
"Well, that's as thorough of an experiment as we can conduct without alerting the Authorities as to what we're doing," Pandora sighed in obvious distaste.  
  
"Atleast on this Age," Xeno nodded, gazing at the device they'd experimented with- one based on Harley's design, but modified with elements from a certain Crystal Viewer an elderly uncle of Xeno's had designed.  
  
Pandora had met Atrus, and his daughter Yeesha, who was Luna's Aunt in all but direct blood relations, not too long before she'd married Xeno. Found him to be an eccentric kind of fellow to the point it was not surprising where her darling husband had gotten his own eccentricities from.   
  
(Though at the time she hadn't realized just quite HOW old dear Great Uncle Atrus even was- that had been quite a shock to learn, that it had.)  
  
Still, with the two devices- a stable visual window to other worlds, plus a generateable portal device, powered by crystals that seemed to be naturally enchanted in some way- put together their experiments and theories were just as confirmed as they could possibly do without outright doing something to disrupt the wards on 'The Veil' that the Ministry of Magic and other such ruling bodies of the Wizarding World had in place to look for trespassers.   
  
They knew now for sure, with absolute dreading certainty, that the reason the stars in the Wizarding World did not match the stars on Earth wasn't because the veil hid 'some magical stars' from the Muggle realm, no, not at all...  
  
It was because the Wizarding World was literally its own world- an alternate version of Earth that the Wizards had found when trying to create a veil to hide themselves away. Whether those ancient Wizards who had done such were aware of what they'd done and hidden it from the mass population of Wizards, or if they'd simply believed themselves to have succeeded and ignored all the evidence otherwise... well.  
  
Those were questions best not asked at this stage.  
  
After all, they'd created a stable portal peering into a mirrored version of their own reality- with its own Xenophilus and Pandora going about their own research projects and day to day life... but not exactly the same as they were doing.   
  
There were other Instances of this world that had similarly been settled by Wizards- or perhaps it was the other way around there?- and that meant that they'd hit Instancing Territory long before anyone had coined the term.  
  
The Wizarding World and its Earth were Instances of each other- divergent in some way in its ancient history, but otherwise identical. And there were other Instances of those worlds out there too. Likely, there were as many Instances of Earth as there were unique people in History, the Great Tree of Possibilities stretching out into the wild, vast unknown reaches of potentials.  
  
Xenophilus shut the portal down and began about disassembling it.   
  
Perhaps one day they would rebuild this strange world mirror- when Luna was older perhaps and she could go on adventures of her own... But for now it would have to do with being a very well kept secret.   
  
There was no sense drawing the ire of the authorities down on them for violating some absurd rule about enchanting Muggle Technology, after all. Not when this wasn't even enchanted. It was straight up technology that could do seemingly magical things.  
  
But really, that was the rub of it. The Wizarding World had taken to assume that everything they did was Magic. Nothing could simply be Mundane, or Muggle-tech, and achieve the same feats! (It was presently a SLOW and PAINFUL climb in their culture to accept mechanical pens versus the ink pots and quills, after all.)  
  
Computing Technology on the Muggle Side of Things was rapidly advancing. Soon, Pandora saw the future of boxes the size of a small checkbook that had powerful image projecting properties- magic in all but name, it would seem to the casual observer. The ability to communicate long distances, perform incredible tasks...   
  
The D'ni had already once had that technology the size of one's hand, or smaller, no magic required. It was a matter of time before the Wizarding World would be outpaced by Muggle Technology and they'd either be forced to adapt or cut off contact between the worlds entirely.   
  
Adapt, or stagnate. That was evolution's mandate here.   
  
Pandora wished and longed to see what the future had in store for her two worlds.  
  


* * *

  
**THE AGE OF EARTH, 1991. SANDSTONE CEMETERY, NEW MEXICO. USA.**  
  
It'd been a spell experiment missfire.   
  
That was what Luna Lovegood had been told to tell everyone.  
  
Pandora had been incinerated too thoroughly to identify- cremated on the spot.  
  
That was what Luna Lovegood had been told to tell everyone.  
  
There was no body to bury, and so an empty gravestone lay in a pair of cemeteries in the UK and in the Wizarding World.  
  
That was what Luna Lovegood had been told to tell everyone.  
  
The real truth of the matter was that one of the Dark Lord's lackies had apparently heard about her parents experiments on the Veil between worlds somewhere, and had come knocking with wand in hand to see if they could use those experiments to try to resurrect their Dark Lord through some convoluted string of logic that eight year old Luna could keep cycling through in her mind until she became her own Mother's age and likely would still never figure out.  
  
Clearly, the would be Dark Assassin had misunderstood the Veil between Worlds as the Veil between Life and Death- which as far as Luna knew from her Mother's final words was an actual object stored in some vault somewhere on Ministry property.  
  
Still, they wouldn't have had it.   
  
Luna's mother had positively obliterated the rouge witch- leaving behind a pile of ashes- but not without taking damage herself.  
  
Pandora Lovegood thus had been buried in the cemetery near their family home in the desert, near the Cavern, near D'ni.  
  
It was land that wasn't under either the Quibbler or Lovegood names.   
  
Nobody would ever look for them in the desert of another country- not when the Lovegoods still seemingly held full time residence in their own home.  
  
Luna didn't know what experiments had been performed, or how any dark wizards would have learned of them- her Parents weren't blabber mouths to just anyone, so there had to be a weak link some where in the lines of communication.  
  
It wasn't until a month later that a girl Luna had played with many times during their childhoods- Joey Claire- reached out to her with a letter explaining their own family tragedy.  
  
Annette had been talking to someone she'd thought was a trusted friend, but had turned out to be a snitch to a dark wizard who'd come and attacked their home not hours before the same wizard had attacked Luna's home.   
  
Annette had died after sending her family through a Linking Book and burning it behind them so the Wizard couldn't get to them.  
  
Luna Lovegood wasn't sure what to do with herself after that. So she wrote. She wrote to Joey, and she wrote in books- practice runs with the limited knowledge of the Art she'd learned from her parents and her Aunt and Great Uncle without actively studying it.  
  
...Maybe she'd take that up fully, before going to whatever wizarding school she went to.  
  


* * *

  
**THE AGE OF EARTH, JULY 31ST, 1992. THE LEAKY CAULDRON, LONDON SIDE.**  
  
Xenophilius Lovegood was quite startled that Friday morning to see Rubeus Hagrid leading a young boy through to Diagon Alley. An uproar of whispers was starting already. The Boy who Lived, and defeated He Who Must Not Be Named, even in death.  
  
Harry Potter's 11th Birthday had come, and thus, he was elligble for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  
  
Xeno felt his heart skip a beat. How had he not realized? Luna's first year of Hogwarts would be Harry Potter's second.  
  
His hopes for his darling daughter having a normal school life were dashed before they even could happen.  
  
Nothing would be ordinary in the next seven years. Harry Potter had returned to the Wizarding World after being kept away for most of his life. The boy was going to stumble through no ends of political mine fields that upset the balance of everything.  
  
He made a decision.  
  
"Excuse me, Hagrid!" he called out, chasing after them before they could cross fully into Diagon Alley. "A moment please?"  
  
The liminal space between Earth and the Wizarding World here was unobserveable when one had the right charms on them, which Xeno almost always did, and today was no exception.   
  
"Oh! Hello Mr. Lovegood, sorry, we're not stoppin' for interviews today," Hagrid said, flashing an apologetic grin. "'Arry here has a lot of shopping to get done."  
  
"Oh, I've no doubt," Xeno gave a smile. "But I'm not here asking for an interview. I'd like to just pass along some quick advice to the boy, and maybe ask a favor of him for his second year? About my daughter, you see. That will be her first year."  
  
"Really now?" Hagrid mused. "Alri'te! I suppose we can wait a minute if it's quick."  
  
Xeno knelt down to look Harry Potter in the eyes. "Hello, Harry. My names Xenophilius Lovegood, Xeno for short."  
  
"Hello, Sir," Harry said, quietly, but politely.   
  
"So, that advice I've got, three pieces," Xeno said, raising a single finger. "The first piece is this. Be mindful of your elders. Many of them will see that Scar of yours, and hear your name, and think of personal agendas they might want to advance."  
  
"Like the favor you intend to ask?" Harry asked, a little snarky, though wincing the moment he said it as if expecting outrage.  
  
Xeno laughed, instead. "Yes. That's certainly something of the case, I suppose. I like your wit." He said with a honest smile, trying to reassure the boy. "Just keep in mind certain folk will want to drag you into politics. And remember: Don't sign anything until you're eighteen!"   
  
Harry nodded, "Right."  
  
Xeno raised a second finger. "My second piece of advice is to let things happen naturally. See who you feel most comfortable with and who you want to reach out to first. Trust your instincts, they should usually guide you true in most cases."   
  
"And the third?" Harry asked, quick witted.   
  
Xeno smiled. "If you find yourself in lots of trouble, whether you started it or not, always be on your toes, and never stay in one place for too long."  
  
"I think I can do that," Harry nodded.  
  
"As for my favor, well, more of a request, and I know it's rather early," Xeno said, "but my daughter, Luna, will be having her first year at Hogwarts during your second year. If you happen to ever see her in trouble that she can't get herself out of, consider lending a hand, would you? Also, it's alright incase you forget. You haven't even had your first year yet, let alone your second. It's a long ways off in the future after all."  
  
Harry nodded, "If I remember, I'll try to do that, sir."  
  
"Alright, that's all I can ask." Xeno nodded, standing."I'll let you go then. Have a good day, Hagrid," he nodded to the man. "Harry," he smiled to the boy. "I hope your first year is truly magical."  
  


* * *

  
**THE WIZARDING WORLD, OCTOBER 31ST, 1992. HOGWARTS CASTLE.**  
  
**_"TROOOOLL! TROOLL IN THE DUUUNGEOOON!!!"_** the man in the turban shouted, bursting into the dining hall. "Just thought you'd ought to know."  
  
And then he fainted on the spot.  
  
Evacuation orders were given, students to be sent back to their dorms-- wait, weren't the Slytherin Dorms in the Dungeons too? No, surely they would be sent somewhere else for safe keeping during the-  
  
Harry's brain did a head count of his own year while thinking on these thoughts.  
  
Hermoine was missing. Crying in the bathroom, hadn't one of the other girls said?  
  
Ron muttered something about the same lines as he processed that fact too.  
  
Harry may have hesitated by a few seconds at any other time before making the decision he would almost always make on so many branches of reality, but a few words echoed in the back of his mind that made Harry Potter make the decision just a few seconds quicker.  
  
_'Consider lending a hand, would you?'_  
  
"Let's go get Hermoine," Harry said to Ron, who nodded, not arguing.  
  
And thus, they ran off towards an inevitable fate, and events were set into motion once more on that Saturday evening known as Halloween.

* * *

**THE AGE OF EARTH, DECEMBER 25TH. 1992. TOM HANNA'S ESTATE, NEW MEXICO, USA.**  
  
_'It had been a pun,'_ Yeesha, daughter of Atrus, thought as she linked into the house of her close family friends- the Lovegoods- while she tried to remember why the place's name was so similar to her own former desert home.  
  
That long ago Stranger who had saved her Father on Myst, and her Mother on Riven; had Saved Releehsahn from mad hands; had saved Yeesha herself from a terrible fate... that Stranger had decided to name his family estate in a blatant pun of the name Atrus had named his desert home- Tomahna.  
  
Yes, it had been some dreadfully awful play on words, and Katran had loved the poetry of it. Atrus, too, had had a soft spot for the similar naming scheme.  
  
But still, the name persisted to this day even as the family name shifted with each generation- as flexible and non static as the wind itself. Pun aside, it was clear that this place was still just as much of a home for this family, as Tomahna had been for her own family, while they'd lived there.  
  
Abandoning it to the sands of time had been hard, but Atrus had been too old to continue living there on his own at that point, and the accident that had taken Katran had been hard on them both.  
  
It felt better, in its own way, to have that legacy continued by the family of their dearest friend, even as tragedies continued to pile on.  
  
"Aunt Yeesha," Xenophilius smiled when he entered the linking room- having heard her arrive. "It's good to see you."  
  
"The same to you, Philius," Yeesha smiled.  
  
It was a quiet morning in the New Mexico desert, the sun was low, the wildlife was still slumbering.  
  
Mornings like today reminded Yeesha of her childhood- not just of Tomahna- as she'd spent some time here as well, when growing up.  
  
The decor did change from generation to generation, family to family, year to year, but the landscape barely changed much out here in the wilderness, and the building itself only really changed in design whenever an extension was added on- never changing what was already there unless absolutely necessary. The structure and bones of the house were unchanging in origin.  
  
She ran a hand along a wall as she followed Xenophilius into the living room where Luna was sitting, reading a magazine with a moving picture on the cover. Said magazine was upsidedown, however, and the picture of some unfamiliar girl with outlandish hair was reacting to said fact with obvious annoyance.  
  
Wizard's magic, Yeesha realized after a moment. It was a wizarding world magazine.  
  
"Last month's issue," Xeno explained. "Luna's been trying to figure out this challenging ever-shifting maze puzzle they printed for weeks now."  
  
"They do such things?" Yeesha asked, marveling at the concept.  
  
"The first person to beat it is supposed to win a year's supply of chocolate frogs," Xenophilius explained, "and nobody's beaten it yet."  
  
"How do you tell if someone's beaten an ever shifting maze?" Yeesha asked, a little confused.  
  
"I believe all print versions of the maze are linked to an original maze object somewhere, and whenever one version is solved, the core updates to reflect it?" Xenophilius mused. "I suppose it's probably an extension of how the figures in paintings and cards can traverse between different frames."  
  
Yeesha blinked. "Pardon my lack of understanding wizardry technobabble. I knew they moved about, but did I hear you correctly in that people depicted in paintings can enter paintings that were not their own?"  
  
"Oh, yes," Xenophilius nodded. "Back in Hogwarts it's not uncommon to see the figures in paintings walking between frames back and forth or having parties in larger settings."  
  
Yeesha went to ask something, then stopped. "You know what," she finally said, "the Wizarding World is more insane than I ever thought it was. I'll accept a magic maze that's linked to all copies of it somehow."  
  
And then there was a rousing roar of party noises as illusions of confettii burst forth from the page of the magazine Luna was holding- startling the girl and forcing her to blink away the stars flashing in her eyes.  
  
"Oh," Luna smiled after a moment. "I won!"  
  
"Really? How did...?" Xenophilius went to ask Luna all kinds of questions about the maze, and Yeesha just smiled, watching.  
  
The death of Luna's mother had been a terrible tragedy, but Yeesha was glad to see Luna continuing to pull out of her withdrawn state.   
  
Next year, she would be going to Hogwarts.   
  
Breakfast was soon made, and eaten, and it came time to open the presents, of which there weren't many as compared to earlier years, but had sadly become the normal. Pandora had been the big Christmas celebrator in the family as of late, going overboard with far too many gifts in every direction.  
  
However, that meant that what was here now were items that had special significance for everyone.  
  
Yeesha was never much one for the holiday itself- she'd seen it evolve over the centuries into the current form it was now, and she found the practice to be an absurd coating of religion painted over an originally non religious celebration of life and survival.  
  
But that celebration? That was something Yeesha could get behind, fully.  
  
"Before we begin with everything," Yeesha said, "I have one very special gift for you, Luna." She retrieved the small flat package shaped like a book- for it was one.  
  
"This was a gift I gave your Father when he went to Hogwarts, originally. And it is a gift we've both decided to give to you as well." Yeesha held it for a moment, feeling the energies of her work coursing through it now. "However, as time marches on, we all evolve and change, our skills growing with us." Yeesha gave a smile. "Before, your father had to be sparing with his uses of this gift, lest it be left behind when he traveled. But now... I have the skills that allow it to travel with you." She offered the object to Luna, who took it, an awestruck look on her face.  
  
The plain wrapping was delicately removed, revealing a plain brown book cover. Luna opened it, and saw a linking panel, animated with life despite the impossibility of it. Below it, a stamp- Yeesha's name in a circlized symbol- the same as the glyph on Aunt's face.   
  
"Home," Luna said, seeing the familiar decore of her home- the Linking Room within which books to this place were written. "You're saying it will travel with me when I Link?"  
  
Yeesha nodded. "I've figured the technique out. I hope to apply it to another project, soon, but for now... You will be one of the few who can travel with a book that stays with you. And more than that, I've also modified it so that it works within this same Age as it arrives to."  
  
Luna didn't hesitate, sitting where she was, touching a hand to the panel and linking away.  
  
The book traveled with her, even loosely held within her grasp.  
  
The return link echoed out from the linking room a second later.  
  
"It worked! It actually worked!" Luna ran back out to join them, awe in her eyes. "You have to show me how!"  
  
"When you're older," Yeesha said, smiling. "You are still learning the Art in its basics, after all."  
  
Luna nodded, excited. "Of course! But- I can't wait! This is..."  
  
"It's incredible," Xenophilius smiled. "I'm incredibly jealous of you, my girl. Oh, how I wished I could have had that book when I was at School."  
  
"Unfortunately, I still haven't worked out time travel yet," Yeesha apologized.  
  
Xenophilius laughed, "Let me know when you do, would you? It would make studying some phenomenon far more easier."  
  
Yeesha laughed as well, and she found that she didn't feel any bitterness towards the concept at all for once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELP. Here we go again. 
> 
> New story, new fic, same old Calum Traveler Crossover Nonsense. I just can't help myself, heheh. 
> 
> First off, a statement.
> 
> I'm not someone who agrees with or supports shitty behavior towards any people- I've received enough flack of that kind over my life time, and so have so many other people that I'd be here past the character limit trying to cover every topic. I don't like getting obvious with my statements here in authors notes, but I'll say it here. Rowling's stances towards Trans People- and for that matter, any other people or groups she's disparaged either directly or indirectly- are horrible and deserving of being denounced. 
> 
> Much like my Stargate/Homestuck crossover fic, Stargate Alternia, I'm of the mind that a setting, when combined with another setting, can make for a better setting over-all when you kick out the nonsense and often times shitty behaviors put forward in the story without thought. Or, in the case of Rowling's somewhat recent-ish on-display behavior with how she's, well... See above. One wonders if perhaps some of these shitty things were put in very intentionally right from the start. If that's the case, oh, I'm definitely decoupling things of that nature, going to aim for improving a somewhat wobbly setting (Oh, it's not Gehn tier writing, but it's definitely cause for concern and needing some patchwork), and also doing the standard compare and contrast of cultures.
> 
> Rowan and I have discussed a LOT on Cyan Chat Discord about this fic concept, and where Rowan is going off on a different path from me (We've compared notes and these are definitely going to be different takes), there's one obvious comparison to be made, that another member of the Myst Community, Gondar, mentioned during our rambling talks.
> 
> The D'ni as they were pre-fall and the Wizarding World as it's about to become in this part of the timeline... They're *disconcertingly similar* in a lot of ways. And there's a LOT of potential to be had in that.
> 
> The way I see it, shitty behavior isn't something to be admired or emulated. In the end, corruption and rot leads to a collapse. D'ni saw it, and the Wizarding World flirts with it like mad. That's not exclusive to fiction, however.
> 
> But enough about those serious thoughts for the moment, let's touch on some other things.
> 
> \---
> 
> One thing that I'm curious to see as Rowan and I diverge on this concept is how we handle the URU side of things. This IS ostensibly an URU and Harry Potter crossover first and foremost, which means I'll be handling a LOT of URU Lore and, well, anyone who knows me knows that I'm in my *element* when it comes to URU's era of the timeline. 
> 
> I don't really see a lot of fics set in this Pre-DRC Modern Era, or a lot of fics about URU's era, period. In SG:Alternia I went and upended the timeline majorly. This time around I may stick to things a lot more closer to the pages. 
> 
> I'm not sure yet which side of this crossover is the *Core* element of it, like how in SG:Alt' it was the Stargate side of things that serves as the foundational core. I suppose we'll see how that works out as we carry along, but my gut instinct is that this is going to be a Myst Lore heavy fic first, with HP stuff being tacked on as the plot demands. 
> 
> \---
> 
> What else is there to talk about? Uh, I'm writing this by the seat of my pants with a series of wiki entries open and clogging up Firefox. Pardon any typos, please, and if you see something egregiously wrong with how I wrote a name or word or sentence and you find it appalling, please let me know in the comments. 
> 
> I'll be posting this somewhat regularly inter-spliced with Kiramager chapters, but I don't have a set schedule yet. If ever. So. Uh. Yeah.
> 
> At the very least I've got six years of book content to work through as a guideline! So. I'm like, 50% more likely to actually finish this series at some point! (I'd say closer to 70% but, well, see Kiramager bonus round updates to SG:Alt. LOL.)
> 
> I'm just taking this one chapter at a time. Let's see where this goes, shall we?
> 
> OH, and be sure to check out Rowan's version of this series, Between Wizards and D'ni if you haven't yet!
> 
> [INSERT AO3 URL HERE] /series/2011261


	2. Rebooting Rabbits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Watson and Zandi talk; Luna prepares for, and arrives at, Hogwarts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW:  
> Mentions of Delusions of Godhood.  
> Poor Health Choices.  
> Talk about Adaptation of Real Events into Fictional Events.  
> Background Gilderoy Lockhart and Malfoy Shenanigans.  
> Unsafe Book Stacking- DON'T TRY THIS ANYWHERE, PLEASE!

**THE AGE OF EARTH, JUNE 4TH, 1993.**  
  
 **TOWN OF CATHERINE, EDDY COUNTY, NEW MEXICO, USA.**  
  
Some two hundred or so years in the past, a man named Gehn had flung people through a rift in an Age called Riven, hurtling them across a starry expanse of space and time and flowing dimensions...  
  
Almost all of them wound up in the desert of New Mexico, scattered with some proximity around a certain volcano.   
  
The natives of Riven, exiled as such, would find each other over time in a nearby settlement town, named Catherine. That this name sounded so very similar to the name of their Dear Katran, she who had ascended to the ranks of True Godhood unlike that false god Gehn, seemed to be the sign they all needed to live there, awaiting signs of the future.  
  
A few years later a score of objects fell from the heavens, and among them was a survivor of the co;lapse of their Age of Riven- who stumbled into town, dust covered, clutching the mythical MYST Book under arm, and in desperate need of water- claiming to be a friend of Atrus and Katran...  
  
They were offered the help they needed, and were set up with a place to stay until things changed.  
  
Fast Forwards to the present day, and Luna Lovegood, distant descendant of that random, sand swept stranger, still found that the town's long memory favored her family whenever they passed through.  
  
Discounts at the gas stations and grocery stores; friendly smiles and waves here and there; extra cups of favored dipping sauces at the restaraunts whenever fries were ordered, and free refills even at places that charged for the extra beverages.  
  
That the opposite held true of those who had earned some ire went without saying.  
  
The people working on the Restoration of the Cavern of D'ni who passed through the town as a frequent waypoint on their way to one of the two surface entrances to D'ni, with their trucks of supplies and heavy machinery, reminded the descendants of Riven far too much of Gehn for their own liking.  
  
People who knew not with what they were meddling with.  
  
Still, as long as they stayed out of their way and didn't cause trouble, they didn't cause trouble back.  
  
"I have a concern," Doctor Richard Watson said as he frowned, watching a young girl receive several cups of dipping sauce for her order of fries at a restaraunt. He'd ordered a basket of fries already and hadn't received any dipping sauce- he'd had to ask for one, and he still hadn't gotten it yet.  
  
"What's that?" Elias Zandi asked, poking at his hamburger sandwich with a fork and knife. "You mean me eating greasy fast food so soon after surgery?"  
  
"What? Yes, but also not exactly what I meant," Richard shook his head. "Though I do protest you eating that after the Doctors advised you to slow down."  
  
Elias poked his fork towards Richard, and said, "You can take my greasy sandwiches from my cold dead hands, Rich."  
  
"Fine, fine," Richard held his hands up in appeasement.  
  
"So what's your concern then?" Elias asked, poking his fork into his food and lifting a chunk of meat and bread and leafy greens to his mouth.  
  
"Are we doing the right thing?" Richard asked, looking to his dear friend. "Having the Millers make the game, I mean?"  
  
Elias nearly choked on his food, and then fixed Richard with a startled look- "What do you mean are we doing the right thing!? How else are we supposed to pass the word along to those who feel The Call?"  
  
"I mean, I've been thinking about the translations of the Journals," Richard started to explain. "The, ah, the Events. Of the Islands?"  
Islands was the key word, plural, rather than island. Elias frowned, sitting to attention. "That's a whole other thing down the line, Rich. What's got you thinking like this?"  
  
Richard looked around the restaurant they were in. So many people of what seemed like a Pacific Islander's descent. In the New Mexico Desert of all places. So close to the Cleft. So close to the place where they'd seen the remnants of Riven- the Telescope and the skeleton.  
  
Corpses of a world long gone.  
  
"I think there are living Remnants," Richard said, simply.  
  
Elias looked around, then chuckled a bit dryly. "Richard, you should hear Jeff say I'm the delusional one sometimes. Let's be real here, would They-" Atrus and Catherine- "have left her people here on Earth?"  
  
Richard considered it- and really, he did think the chances were slim, but... "Slim as the chances of that happening are, they should be considered. What if people come here looking for the ones that He Tossed Through?" Richard stressed.  
  
"Look, Rich, we tried trying to find any descendants of the people who might've been involved with that," Elias tried to appease his friend. "The Millers didn't ** _not_** do their due diligence, or anything. If there are people who are going to protest about this game some 200 years later, then they've had enough name changes or went to ground hard enough we couldn't find them! It's as simple as that."  
  
"I'm still not sure," Richard started.  
  
"Look, Rich," Elias started. "The Brothers are coming down later this year, before the game is set to release. If you feel that it's a mistake then, that's the last chance any of us will have to stop it. Simple as that." He then said, "Now, let's not talk about these heavy things and focus on lighter things."  
  
"Such as?" Richard asked.  
  
"Such as the fact that you're letting your fries get cold," Elias said, eyeing the untouched basket of fries.  
  
"I haven't gotten my sauce yet," Richard said. "It's horribly bland to eat fries without sauce."  
  
"Heathen," Elias smirked, grabbing a fry and eating it on his own, plain, and enjoying it. "These are Perfectly Seasoned!"  
  
"If by 'perfectly seasoned' you mean tastes like an overly salted potato fried in peanut oil? Then yes, I can see that," Richard conceded. "However, I do prefer a certain tang to my food."  
  
"Try it, you'll be surprised," Elias said, smirking.  
  
Richard, feeling he owed his friend some measure of trust, tried a fry and--  
  
Oh.  
  
Somehow it seemed like they'd made it even worse than the last time. Was that on purpose?? He definitely needed a dipping sauce to help take the edge off of it this time.  
  
In retrospect, Richard thought, it was probably the fact that he'd complained about the seasoning on the fries the last time he was here that lead to the Wait staff here stiffing him on his dipping sauces.   
  
But in his defense, they HAD asked him if there was anything wrong with his meal!

* * *

"So," Xenophilius Lovegood said to his daughter as they ate their lunch. "I hear the school year wraps up soon. Are you excited?"  
  
Luna nodded. "As excited as I can be to explore any new place, Father."  
  
"So I'm thinking we'll take the trip out on the 18th of August," Xeno began. "Get your school supplies in order then, and see if we can spot any of your schoolmates for the next year. I think Ginny is supposed to be sorted with you this year, right?"  
  
"Yes," Luna nodded. Their closest neighbors in the Wizarding World was the Weasley family- of whom Ginny, the youngest daughter, was Luna's own age. "She's talked quite a bit about it during her last visit."  
  
The annoying thing about Ginny being the last of the Weasleys to go to Hogwarts was that this year she'd spent a large amount of time coming to visit without her one year older brother Ron to keep her company. Luna didn't mind Ginny one bit, she was a fun girl to hang out with... normally.  
  
The last year had been slightly uncomfortable with how... almost clingy Ginny had been.   
  
Luna couldn't blame her, being the last kid left home alone lead to feelings of loneliness, but Luna had long since adapted to the feeling of being alone in the Wizarding World. There were few who understood her there- her parents being the only ones, really.   
  
Luna found it much easier to make friends in other worlds- Tay, Releeshahn, here on Earth- really, Luna found most people outside the Wizarding World seemed to have a more open mind about the unknown.  
  
Of course, she'd also had far more opportunities to make friends in other worlds as it was. Family trips and work calls for her Parents had taken her to lots of places.   
  
It was easier to make friends when you were traveling, it felt like.  
  
Almost as if there was a moving sense of transiency that made whatever connections you could make all the more important.  
  
Still, hopefully Ginny and Luna both would find enough friends this year at Hogwarts to make things a little more interesting.  
  


* * *

  
 **THE WIZARDING WORLD, AUGUST 18TH, 1993.**  
  
 **DIAGON ALLEY; FLOURISH AND BLOTTS.**  
  
Luna usually loved being in the presence of books.  
  
"Oh of all the-" Xenophilius mumbled. "Why did they have to be doing some book signing today?"  
  
Not so today. The smiling, pompous face of Gilderoy Lockhart turned to look at any female figure that caught his magically reproduced eyes so he could flash them a book selling smile.  
  
There was some commotion near the front where the man himself was trying to ingratiate himself with a young boy in glasses- Harry Potter, Luna suspected, and Xenophilius knew. And it was that commotion that was keeping them from getting out of the place right now, especially with the Malfoys looming at the door, peering as if waiting for their moment to strike.  
  
Truthfully, it looked like an explosive situation about to burst.  
  
"Sorry, sir, but I'm not interested in-" Harry's voice could be heard for a moment over the din of loud conversation and flashing magic cameras lightbulbs. (How outdated, Luna thought.)  
  
"Time Lend a hand, then," Xenophilius mumbled, taking a step to intercede into the encounter.  
  
"Father?" Luna asked. "Could I...?"  
  
Father looked to Daughter, and then he smiled. "Alright, if you've got something in mind."  
  
The Malfoy's entered- and began accorsting The Weasley's with some snide remarks.  
  
Luna slipped through the crowd, spotting a book precariously sticking out of a towering stack of Lockhart's garishly pink covered books. She brushed it with her arm as she walked by.  
  
Lockhart was now trying to talk to the Malfoys- oh, what a mess this was going to be- and some other girl who was accompanying the Weasleys seemed offput by this for some reason. Bushy, brown hair, gleaming, piercing eyes- reminded Luna of her penpal Joey, save that the eye color didn't match at all, but there was a sharp wit of cleverness there.  
  
Luna saw another stack of books ready to tumble- seriously, who stacked these? Did they not know how to properly stack books to avoid this kind of precarious potential accident?  
  
And speaking of books, Luna saw the younger Malfoy palming something towards one of the book-carrying cauldrons next to the Weasley family- just what was he planning now, she wondered?  
  
The first stack began to tumble, and right on cue- it smacked down in the direction Luna was walking. She 'dodged' into the other pile as the first colapsed onto startled folk.  
  
Everything began to spiral into chaos- Luna was sure if she'd ever met her Uncle Achenar that he'd be very proud as Luna 'accidentally' crashed into the second stack and sent it into a collapsing spiral that-- Oh for the love of all that was librarian, who stacked a tower of books THAT CLOSELY to another tower of books!?  
  
A third tower of books came tumbling down upon a taller bookshelf and Luna could only marvel as tomes from on high rained down onto the front area of the bookstore.  
  
Right onto the no longer smug, but rather startled looking Malfoys and a rather horrified Gilderoy Lockhart.  
  
The Weasleys had already started moving when the first tower of books begun to collapse.  
  
A black journal landed on the ground, falling from the younger Malfoy's hand, and then was lost in the chaos as Luna's sight line of it was interrupted by a silently screaming cover-bound version of Gilderoy Lockhart.  
  
...She was probably going to get a detention for this if anyone at Hogwarts ever found out she did it intentionally.  
  
"Dear God, Luna! Are you alright!?" Her father was upon her in an instant, genuine concern on his face.   
  
"I'm fine," She answered. "Though I think I'm buried in books."  
  
And she was, truly, buried in the books. At least the things had been feather-weight enchanted to have been stacked in the first place, so they didn't weigh that much... even if gravity still held true on the terminal velocity on the way down.  
  


* * *

 **EARTH, LONDON, SEPTEMBER 1ST, 1993. PLATFORM 9 3/4.**  
  
It was a Wonderfully Windy Wednesday, and Luna felt anxious in a way she didn't quite want to be feeling.  
  
There was a Video Game releasing at the end of the month- the 24th to be exact. And while Luna wasn't much of a computer-person, she much preferred her books and her pens and papers and such... this was going to be an exception.  
  
The Video Game coming out was called MYST.  
  
 ** _MYST._**  
  
There'd been quiet rumblings over the year about the people in the D'ni Restoration Foundation getting in contact with some game company, but Luna and her Father had both assumed it was to do with the Discovery of D'ni Itself, not...   
  
Not this.  
  
 ** _MYST._**  
  
They knew something. They'd found something.   
  
And Luna wasn't sure what to make of it yet. It could've just been a few stray pages of a journal, or it could have been something far bigger.  
  
Luna approached the wall with her cart of luggage, her father at her side, talking about some new adventure Aunt Yeesha had turned him onto that he was going to do while she went to Hogwarts.  
  
She'd have the house to herself, she supposed. They already had the computer, bought in advance of the game.  
  
"Alright," Xenophilius smiled. "I'll see you at the Christmas Holidays, alright, Luna?"  
  
Luna nodded. "Of course. Aren't you seeing me off to the train, though?"  
  
"Sorry, I've got one of those nagging feelings," Xenophilius said, scowling off at the shadows. "Something I've got to see through to make sure something doesn't go horribly wrong."  
  
Luna nodded, knowing the feeling herself. It was a well honed instinct in their family over the centuries. "Good luck," and with that, they said their farewells, and she headed through the wall onto the train.  
  
Xenophilius waited, moving to the shadows, and he watched as families went through the wall... There were the Weasleys, with Harry Potter...   
  
He counted them as they went through, one after the other, and observed the quiet, muted woosh of a Link whisking them away.   
  
_**WHAM!**_  
  
The cart crashed into the wall when it came to Ron and Harry.  
  
Xenophilius stood to attention, and discretely checked his private linking book. The panel swirled black clouds instead of the usual image. Someone had set up a No Linking Field at the last possible moment.  
  
The Boys began freaking out- and with good reason, it was late. The Express would be leaving soon.  
  
"Excuse me, boys," he ran up to them before they rammed the wall again.   
  
"Oh! Mister Lovegood," Ron realized. "Hullo, what are you doing here?"  
  
"Had a bad feeling after dropping Luna off," Xenophilius answered, looking around for any sign of a Wizard who could have done something. "Saw you two ran into the wall. Figured something was wrong, thought I'd check it out..."   
  
It had to be magic. Someone had to have blocked off the area to prevent the kids from getting through but why would--?  
  
"Dobby!" Harry hissed.   
  
"The house elf that got you in trouble with the Dursleys?" Ron asked.   
  
"What elf and what trouble?" Xeno turned towards the boys.  
  
And so Ron explained, and Harry explained, and as they looked at each other to confirm their stories at one point, Xeno checked his book and-- The Panel was back!  
  
"Boys," he started, "I think it's open now. Let's give it a go!"  
  
Xeno lead them through the wall, and got them through onto the train just in time. It was about to leave, and he managed to get them onboard before it did.  
  
That done, he located the nearest Wizard Technician who maintained the warp between Earth and the Wizarding World, and informed them that he'd witnessed a wall failure that had nearly derailed the two boys' trip to school as well as the possible House Elf Interference.  
  
About a hundred or so House Elves were wild now thanks to the actions of a strange hero freeing them. Xenophilius had his suspicions who, but it was possible any number of those elves were behind this, and if so, he needed to talk to his Aunt about her meddling with the affairs of the Ages he was studying while he was studying them.  
  
...But it wasn't that bit that was concerning him.  
  
Even before Harry Potter had been locked in his bedroom, for underage magic a House Elf had framed him for- he'd been denied his mail by the House Elf- as well as any access to his Owl or school supplies by his so called family.  
  
And with how thin Harry had seemed today, too, even after a literal month of staying with the Weasley's and Molly Weasley's cooking to fatten him up...  
  
Oh, Something seemed wrong, and there really was no way that boy was going back to them by the end of the summer if Xenophilius had his way of it.

* * *

 **THE WIZARDING WORLD. HOGWARTS CASTLE.**  
  
Luna had a rather large hat put on her head.  
  
[...Well, now, aren't you an interesting bird?] The Sorting Hat asked after a long moment of astonishment.  
  
"I'm not actually a bird," Luna said.  
  
[Aren't you, Niece of a Desert Bird running around through the wilderness?]  
  
Luna mused. "I suppose that's an accurate way of looking at it."  
  
[Isn't it? Hmm, hmm! You've got quite a lot of information running through your mind, just the same as that bird in the desert.]  
  
"I do happen to like reading," Luna said.  
  
[Reading's not the half of it! My word! Look at those stars! All those stars and that distant expanse...] The hat seemed astonished. [You have seen more than any girl your age I've seen in... a very long time.]  
  
"I do travel a lot," Luna offered. "It's a family passtime."  
  
[Passtime she says! HAhaah! PASSTIME SHE SAYS!] The hat laughed. [Oh my dear girl you are something else entirely! If I hadn't believed your father's memories as more than fancy daydreams, oh... I do wonder where we would have been then?]   
  
"The future is hard to predict when we're second guessing the past," Luna said.  
  
[Indeed! Hrm... I ought to sort you to Ravenclaw, oh that I should. Ah, but maybe one of the other houses would be better suited? Hmm, what do you think?]  
  
"I think you're the magic hat that's reading my mind," Luna offered.  
  
[Haha! So I am! So I am!] The hat rumbled over her head. [You're quite an interesting bird, that you are, conversing to me so freely like this. Why the last conversation I had was-- oh, lat year, really. Young lad Mister Potter. He didn't want to go to Slytherin! Begged me not to send him anywhere else! What about you, Miss Lovegood?]  
  
"I'd rather not have to spend time near Malfoy, if that's alright," Luna said. "He's quite unpleasant to look at."  
  
Indeed, the blonde haired boy was sneering at her from the Syltherin table, as if her conversation was delaying his dinner.  
  
[Yes yes, he needs to learn not to make faces lest they stick,] the hat agreed. ['Not Slytherin,' then.] He sounded like he was quoting someone- Harry likely. [But what of Hufflepuff? Hm?]  
  
"I dunno, I don't know much about them," Luna said, looking towards that direction. Yellows and browns and tans were the house color, as if they couldn't make up their mind. A lot of unknown faces. A sea of unknowns, really.  
  
[Hmm, yes, but while I see you as a studious one, I can't see you excelling there, no, hm...] The hat mumbled. [No no no, not at all...]  
  
Two houses down, Luna looked towards Gryffindor.   
  
There was Ginny-  
  
"Maybe I could be sorted with a friend?" Luna offered.  
  
[Perhaps...]  
  
-who sitting a bit away from Harry and Ron who were sitting next to the bushy haired girl from the book store, the day of-  
  
[Oh My! No! No No No No NO! You have courage by bounds! Noooohohoho NO! Gryffindor is not where you need to go, bunch of courage swelling lions! No, no, I am definitely leaning towards Ravenclaw, but then again! Oh my! I doubt they'd appreciate what you did to all those books! No. Absolutely not! No. No to Gryffindor, absolutely not.]  
  
"You won't tell anyone, would you?" Luna asked.  
  
[How very Slytherin of you, though! Perhaps all houses save Gryffindor are on the table again, hmm...] The Hat was walking-- er, talking in circles, now. [But then I doubt those books Gilderoy puts out are much in the educational department, no no... hrm.. Perhaps those books did deserve a tumble, eh? T'was for a good cause, after all.]  
  
"Was it?" Luna asked. "I was nursing a bruise on my back all week after."  
  
[Yes yes, couldn't fly well there, could you, Bird?] The Hat asked. [Yes, I'm seeing now that you're quite likely to be best at home in-]  
  
 ** _"RAVENCLAAAAAAAAAW!"_** The Hat shouted aloud, and then was yanked off of her head.  
  
Luna blinked. "Oh, is it over?"  
  


* * *

  
"You sure had a lively conversation," a random Ravenclaw second year said as Luna sat down at the Ravenclaw table next to them where a seat was suddenly magically available.   
  
"Did I?" Luna asked. "It seemed rather subdued if you ask me."  
  
"Hah!" The Second year grinned, and Luna was startled by how bright red their eyes were- almost like sparkling rubies. "I like that! Though, I think the Slytherins probably got upset you held up their dinner a bit."  
  
"T'wasn't my intent, I can assure you," Luna said. "I'm quite hungry myself."  
  
A third year leaned over the table from the other side, an apologetic smile on her face. "We all are. They do this every year. Make us sit through the speech, the introductions, and the sorting, not always in that order, and then we finally eat."  
  
"The sortings always seem to get longer every year," another student- he looked to be a sixth year. "I swear, there's always one student the Hat takes forever on, and it just gets longer each time."  
  
"Yeah, yeah, last year it was that Potter kid," Ruby Eyes said. "Didn't it take like a minute or two to sort him?"  
  
"That Potter Kid is Harry Potter," Sixth year said. "Of course the Hat would take forever on him."  
  
"I have a brother named Harry," Ruby Eyes said, "So no, he's going to be 'that Potter kid' to me no matter what. I've a one Harry limit in my life, you understand me?"  
  
"But yeah," the third year said, "Maggie said last year before she graduated that it always seems like the Hat stalls out on at least one person every few years and they tend to be like, a rising star or something."  
  
"I don't know if I'd like to be a rising star," Luna said. "I'd rather quite like to have a normal school life before I head out into the world."  
  
"They're always modest too," Sixth year remarked, grinning. "Don't worry about it. If you're going to be one of Those Students, you'll find trouble drawn to you no matter what." He offered his hand, "I'm Travis Ross, friends call me Tavvy. If you run into any trouble with any students, come find me. I'll sort things out."  
  
"Thank you," Luna nodded.  
  
"I'm Sally," Ruby Eyes introduced themself. "Sally Anderson. Friends call me Sal, but we'll see if we get along well enough to get that far along first."  
  
"Fair enough," Luna nodded.  
  
Third year grinned, and introduced herself, "Melissa Biron, everyone calls me Missy, though."  
  
"Luna," Luna introduced herself. "Luna Lovegood."  
  


* * *

  
 **EARTH, SEPTEMBER 7TH, 1993. UNNAMED BEVIN STYLE NEIGHBORHOOD, CAVERN OF D'NI.**  
  
Richard Watson gazed out over the lake from the balcony off of the plaza. Behind him by some ways, the Miller Brothers were all talking with Elias and one of the D'ni Tech Experts about imager technology, it sounded like.  
  
Truth be told, Richard had tuned it out to think about the future.  
  
He'd played the game, the first of the official print run of the CDs. Canceling now would cause so much pain and trouble and he couldn't in good conscience end the project. He could see the love and work put into everything.  
  
From the visuals, to the music, to the gameplay itself...  
  
MYST truly was going to be the game of its time- even if people didn't buy into the conceit it displayed. As a piece of Art? OH, would it change the world. He could feel it now in his bones, seeing the game unfold.  
  
Oh, yes, there were artistic liberties, some of which they'd suggested, others which the development team at CYAN had put in place for sake of a better game itself...  
  
They already were planning for the Sequel- RIVEN- as well as some novels to 'flesh out' the backstory some more. Adaptations of more journals they'd found.  
  
Catherine's journals covered enough of the right time period, but the Fall Itself was a harder subject to cover. They had very little reference material on that front.   
  
Covering that... Oh, it would be a trying thing.  
  
Ti'anna's story may end up more artistically licensed than Atrus's, but... that was the concession they were allowing here, wasn't it? Forsaking historical accuracy for translated and 'updated for modern times' imagery.  
  
He didn't get the rocketship, for instance, but Richard would allow it's inclusion into MYST for the simple fact it was already there.  
  
At least the people at CYAN had brought in a proper historian to keep track of every tidbit of real and true history- and what an ironic twist that his own name was the same Richard Watson as Richard himself. No relation, of course, but that was the karmic irony of the universe. How many John Smiths existed out there in the world, after all?  
  
Elias meandered over to him while the Millers seemed preoccupied with a fire marble lamp of all things. "Well, Richard? Have you made a decision?"  
  
Richard sighed. "Yes. We'll keep the game's scheduled release. Hopefully we're not making a huge mistake."  
  
"I sincerely doubt that," Elias grinned. "It's a fun, whimsical adventure that's no different from your average fairy tale book. People will write it off as a kids game, if they don't feel the call. As for those who do? Those are the people we're after, aren't we?"  
  
Richard had to concede the point.  
  
MYST would reach the people it needed to reach, he had to have faith in that.  
  
"I just hope that we don't attract the wrong attention, is all," Richard said.  
  
"As long as we keep an eye on who comes in, that shouldn't be a problem," Elias tried to appease his friend.  
  
Richard wasn't sure if he should believe that kind of optimistic talk or not.  
  


* * *

  
 **THE WIZARDING WORLD. SEPTEMBER 8TH, 1993. HOGWARTS CASTLE.**  
  
The Bassilisk rattled awake as it heard the hissing of its master once more.  
  
The Chamber of Secrets was being unsealed.

* * *

  
 **SEPTEMBER 19TH, 1993. RAVENCLAW DORMITORIES.**  
  
"You know what I've always found weird about Hogwarts?" a student asked.  
  
Luna looked to attention as Missy asked, "What's that, James?"  
  
"The stars here don't match what they do at home," 'James' answered. "I can't find any of the usual constellations."  
  
"What are you talking about?" Travis asked. "Of course they're the same stars, I recognize the patterns from home."  
  
"Okay," James said, not quite believing it. "But I've lived in downtown London all my life before coming here. What about you?"  
  
"Oooh! I see," Sally interjected into the conversation. "You're running into the whole 'Magical Veil' issue."  
  
"Magical Veil?" James asked.  
  
"Yeah," Sally said, "Some of the stars are hidden from the muggle world because they're Magic Stars and we can only see them in magical locations."  
  
Luna debated how to approach this for a moment. So far she'd managed to avoid saying too many things that made people look at her funny- mostly because she'd leaned more towards her knowledge of Earth rather than of other ages- but even then some of the strictly Wizarding World born Witches and Wizards in her year gave her odd looks whenever she said certain things.  
  
Hmm...  
  
Well, it didn't hurt to give her expertise framed as just insight, did it?  
  
"I think," Luna started, "that the 'Veil' is just a common misconception. The Wizarding World isn't Earth."  
  
"What?" Everyone looked at her.  
  
"Well, to be more exact, it's not the *same* Earth," Luna clarified herself. "I think the Veil between the Non-Magical World and the Magical World is really just a barrier between different versions of the planet that you cross via enchantments like Portkeys."   
  
Sally mused, "That would explain why the stars are different, I suppose. I've never really given it any thought. Or paid any attention to the differences, really."  
  
James said, "Just wait until you get to Astrology class, then."  
  
"I'm skipping that," Sally said.  
  
"It's a mandatory class!" James reminded her, astonished.  
  
"It's a what now?" Sally asked, startled.  
  
"Ehh," Missy frowned, speaking over the conversation regarding class schedules, "I guess it's more possible than the veil hiding stars from the night sky, But really? You think nobody'd figure out by now that it's not the same planet? It's been, what, hundreds of years or more since the Veil went up, right? That's a lot of time for people to not notice something."  
  
"Gravity was just something that existed before someone put a name and a concept to it," Luna offered. "But people still made use of it before then, didn't they?"  
  
"Yeah, but that's different! The Veil is something the Wizards of old made!" Missy protested.  
  
"But really, when you think about it," James started, "how did they make a magic spell that covers the entire world that doesn't require constant maintenance?"  
  
"They just did! It's magic!" Missy said, stubbornly sticking to the 'facts' and not willing to consider otherwise.  
  
"But most ward spells like that need something to keep them working, don't they?" James asked.   
  
"I-! I don't think so!" Missy said with all the conviction of a girl who had not yet completed her schooling.  
  
Wizards, Luna had come to find, had a strange sense for not wanting to acknowledge the truths of the world even when presented with them in concise terms. Thus, she didn't even get into the more 'implausible' facts of the matter.  
  
Luna instead looked at Sally, who was fretting over whether they'd missed classes or not, and James, who just shook his head as he walked them through the schedule for their year.  
  
And then, Luna said, "If it's any consolation, I didn't know we had Astronomy classes either."  
  
And then James looped her into the impromptu badgering about schedule while Missy and Travis started brewing into an argument over Stars and Worlds and Planetary drift.   
  
...Luna hoped she hadn't started anything by accident.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey, it's these two guys who barely have any fanfic stuff covering them. Dr. Watson and Elias Zandi have a friendship that goes rather unexplored in canon, let alone fanfic. It feels like I'm covering new ground here, lol.
> 
> Their talk about MYST and the adaptation lends itself to some questions about accountability. Lore is fuzzy on whether the D'ni Restoration Foundation and CYAN got in contact with Atrus on Releeshahn or not. Also fuzzy on whether Atrus and Yeesha know about the games or not. Well, this time period is RIGHT on the money to explore such topics. 
> 
> \---  
> Please don't do what Luna did- books falling on people can be a dangerous thing.   
> \---  
> Luna's talk with the Sorting Hat was fun, but it also wouldn't be a MYST story without someone chanting "NO!" Emphatically And Repeatedly, would it? :P  
> \---  
> These new Ravenclaws are loosely based on the Homestuck^2 Kids, but slightly more directly based off of their copies in Stargate Alternia, to a degree. Sally, at any rate, directly draws her name from that instance of the fic, instead of, well, Homestuck^2. At any rate, just more of me drawing on needing names to put to faces as I retread a bit of the original snip that started all of this in the first place.  
> \---  
> In Universe, the Myst Games Exist as adaptations of Journals. If this is news to you, Hoo. Boy. You're in for a wild ride of Meta, here. Yes, every piece of Myst content, save for URU itself, exists in universe as a game or book or whatever exactly as it exists in our reality. That includes the continuity snarls or the gameplay decisions that were made during development of the games. Things like Trap Books? Yeah, gameplay devices in universe and out of universe. Errors in data transmission like the Cleft's location in the novels?? Woven into the lore! You're going to see bits and pieces of those things surfacing as we go through this story.   
> \---  
> And now we've reached the loop around point and we're starting to go through what showed up in the first story snip. I'm not going to copy-paste it exactly, and, infact, I'm locking down the quantum waveforms towards a different branch with this version of events, same as Rowan's going off in another direction, the rest of this fic is branching off from the original concept of the snipit as well. It's borrowed a few bits of copypasted text here, but for the most part, the context is being shifted around subtly. 
> 
> Namely, I gave names to people who didn't have them originally, and now there's a bit of extra dialogue relating to the stars and stuff.
> 
> ...Hogwarts Classes make no sense so I'm skipping over most of that nonsense as best as I can right now. Keeping a tidy timeline is going to be tricky enough as it is.


	3. Expanding Expectations.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luna picks up the soon-to-be-latest-trend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW:  
> Mentions of attempted bullying.   
> Elias' Ongoing Health Concerns.  
> A Mild to Serious Case of 'Background Possession by Horcrux.'  
> Concern over Ginny's health and safety.  
> The Harry Potter Canonical Basilisk's Petrification of a Cat.  
> Lockhart being the creep he is.  
> [RADIO PLAY:  
> Murder Mystery Conclusion, with IMPLICATIONS of inappropriate Priestly activity.  
> Stereotypical Radio Play Writing Of The Current Wizarding Era.   
> Stereotypical Accent Exaggerations To Convey Identity On Radio Broadcasts.  
> ...It's a Detective Pony reference, too.   
> Jump scare in a morgue.]

**THE WIZARDING WORLD. SEPTEMBER 24TH, 1993. HOGWARTS CASTLE.**  
  
Luna Lovegood was sure enough of her standing at Hogwarts to pick up on the fact that some students in Slytherin were planning on harassing her out of some kind of delayed revenge for her delay of the feast on sorting day. They were apparently planning on doing something to her on her way to Lunch... so she just decided not to go.  
  
Of course, given it was a Friday, and more than that, a Certain Game's release date, she had a perfectly valid excuse to skip the normal lunch hour. The time zone difference was going to cause a bit of internal clock confusion, but she was used to that sort of discrepancy.  
  
Luna slipped out of class into a quiet corner, and watched as some Slytherin boys wandered about, clearly 'lost' and looking for their way back to 'class.'  
  
Luna rolled her eyes as they walked right by her.  
  
She slipped a hand beneath her robes, found the hidden pocket containing her Book Home, and pressed her hand to the panel.  
  
Hogwarts linked away from her, and Luna found herself back home in her family home's linking chamber.  
  
Luna spared a new podium containing a book inside of a glass box a glancing look, and reaffirmed that it was the Hogwarts return book her father had made during his time at the school.   
  
Then, she headed out of the house, and took up her bike to ride into town.  
  
She had an hour to get to the store, get the game, and get back.

She could manage that, just fine.  
  


* * *

  
 **EARTH. CAVERN OF D'NI. KIREL TYPE NEIGHBORHOOD.**  
  
"Richard!" Elias Zandi called out, rushing down the stairs to find Richard Watson talking with some technicians working on the light garden's control circuits. "Richard! Today's the day!"  
  
Elias huffed to a stop, wheezing to catch his breath as Richard gave him a look.  
  
"Oh, Elias, please sit down and slow down!" Richard begged his friend.   
  
"I'm- Huff. Fine, Rich. Just fine." Elias gave a weary smile.   
  
Richard didn't buy it, and dragged his friend over to the stairs to sit down after dismissing the workers to continue on what they were doing.   
  
"Today's the day," Elias said once sitting. "MYST. It's out."  
  
"Yes, I'm aware," Richard said with a controlled tone of voice. It wouldn't do to shout. "You put it on my calendar, after all."  
  
"Yeah, but- it's happening! It's finally happening!" Elias said, happy as could be. "MYST... it's being put out there. It's out there for everyone to see! You should've seen the lines at the local game store! it's-" With a sudden cough, Elias soon started wheezing for breath again.   
  
Richard sighed. "Come on, Elias, let's get you somewhere a bit more comfortable where you can rest."  
  


* * *

Luna stared at the game box in hand as she put it down next to the computer. She had to get going back to school soon, but... Oh. She knew that island.  
  
It seemed rather small and simplified, but she knew the view of that island on that box art. The general shape and swell of the mountain, and the forest covering it.   
  
Myst. She knew Myst Island when she saw it.  
  
She'd have to play the game tomorrow, or atleast install it tomorrow, but... These people at CYAN knew a lot more than it seemed they should.  
  
...They probably had a connection to the D'ni Restoration Foundation group working in D'ni.  
  
The DRF had found something, no doubt. And now... here it was being produced as a game.  
  
Luna linked back to Hogwarts, wondering what the future had in store.

* * *

  
 **THE WIZARDING WORLD. SEPTEMBER 25TH, 1993. HOGWARTS CASTLE.**  
  
"Luna! Luna Lovegood!"  
  
Luna looked, and saw Ron and Harry approaching her in the hallways.  
  
"Yes, Ron, Ron Weasley?" Luna answered the one who'd called her in the same way.  
  
"Sorry, just, Mum asked me to check with you if you'd talked with Ginny lately?" Ron asked. "Apparently Ginny hasn't answered any of Mum's letters since school started, and she flipped me off when I asked her. Literally! I didn't know she even knew what that meant."  
  
"It was weird," Harry answered. "She'd been rather shy last month, but then she was suddenly just... rather rude when Ron went to talk to her earlier."  
  
Ginny? Rude? And flipping her own bother off?  
  
Luna processed the question, and then realized with a start that Ginny Weasley was avoiding her.  
  
They'd shared multiple classes now and even passed in the hallways once or twice, but the other girl had done a total 180 from clingyness to total avoidance.  
  
Ginny hadn't said a word to her once the entire time, let alone looked in her direction.  
  
"Sorry, Ron, but no, I haven't spoken with her," Luna answered. "I can check in with her and see if anything's wrong, though?"  
  
Ron nodded, "If it's not too much trouble? I know she was pretty clingy last year, but..."  
  
Luna said, "It's not a problem. I know how changes in your life can cause all kinds of uncertain upheavals."  
  
"As an aside," Harry said, "could you pass along a thanks from us to your father?"  
  
"My Father?" Luna asked.  
  
"He helped us get through the platform barrier when it siezed up suddenly," Ron said. "We couldn't get through and almost missed the train!"  
  
"I see," Luna mused. "That was nice of him. Why would it do that for, I wonder?"  
  
"There's been this House Elf that's been meddling with my life since the summer," Harry said. "Apparently he thought I'd be in great danger by returning to Hogwarts, but if last year proved anything that's probably always going to be the case."  
  
"Don't say that, Harry!" Ron whimpered. "Now you know something's going to go wrong!"  
  
"Ten pounds it's related to Lockhart," Harry wagered.   
  
"Can we not bet on our second year of school being chaotic?" Ron asked. "I'd rather this thing with Ginny be all we have to deal with if that's the worst of it?"  
  
"Better watch your words carefully, Ron," Luna said. "The Universe might take it as a challenge." While Ron hung his head in dismay, Luna looked to Harry, and said, "I'll pass along your thanks. As for the House Elf, did you catch a name?"  
  
"Dobby," Harry answered.

"I see," Luna nodded, committing the name to memory. "Well, if I happen to run into any House Elves named Dobby, I'll be sure to ask him to stop his harassment."  
  


* * *

  
Luna tracked down Ginny's where-abouts by asking her and Ron's older brothers- the Weasley twins, Fred and George, who went off to a quiet corner to confer for a moment before leading her towards a small common area at the base of one of the towers, where a gathering of students from several years were gathered around a Wizarding Wireless-- just a Radio, really, Luna thought-- listening to some radio drama. A murder mystery, it sounded like from the establishing context.  
  
 _"Would you like to see the body, mister Alphonse?"_ a stereotypical female, Native American accented voice inquired.  
  
 _"I- of course. Anything to dispell this all this ghost talk,"_ said a stereotypical male, Texan American accented voice replied.  
  
 _"Right this way then,"_ the first voice said.   
  
A third Stereotypical Male, but this time _British_ voice narrated, _"And thus Detective Pawnee lead the Rural Township Priest into the morgue."_  
  
Luna supposed that radio dramas had to exaggerate accents to get nationality across, but really, it'd be so much easier if the Wizarding World just adopted Television already, and be slightly less offensive to the cultures being represented. (Really, they ought to improve their writing as well to not be so... so... Blatantly Stereotypical?_  
  
 _"Where... where did you find her?"_ The Texan asked as the creak of a metal door was overplayed too loudly.   
  
_"Out in the lake,"_ the Native American woman- oh, the Detective, likely- answered.   
  
The door slammed, and then there was a door creaking open and metal gliding on rails.  
  
 _"I'll warn you, mister Alphonse, the sight is gruesome."_  
  
 _"I'll manage."_  
  
The Narrator elaborated, _"Mister Alphonse then reached for the tarp covering the rough shape of a human body- he thought it looked strangely flatter than when he'd last saw it- in the chest area that was, but dismissed the thought as, of course her chest would be flatter. She'd been in a lake for several days now. Decay had to have set in."_  
  
Luna raised an eyebrow as some of the students giggled in anticipation.  
  
The Narrator continued, _"And then the body beneath the tarp lurched upwards, and the Mister Alphones shrieked in terror- much like a frightened rat caught in a trap! The tarp fell away, revealing that beneath it was none other than myself-"_ the not narrator, actually, said. **_"Auror Richard Strider!"_**  
  
"GAH!" Alphonse shouted. _"Auror Strider! You startled me! What's the meaning of this!?"_  
  
 _"The meaning of this is that you are under arrest Mister Alphonse!"_ The Auror Strider declared. _"Under Arrest for the Attempted Murder of Lulu Sanders!"_  
  
"WHAT!?" Alphonse shouted in clearly exaggerated outrage. "HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE ME, AUROR!! _Did you find the body or not!? This whole investigation is a farce if-!"_  
  
 _"Oh, we found the body,"_ Auror Strider said. _"Except it wasn't how you left it!"_  
  
 _"Did you even consider the history of the lake you dumped her body in, Mister Alphonse?"_ Detective Pawnee asked.   
  
"What!? What lake!?" Alphonse asked- not unconvincing.  
  
 _"Lake Bearskin Wolf,"_ The local Township Detective said.   
  
_"Haha... what? What are you talking about!"_ Alphonse stated some recap of information: _"That lake's_ Known _for cursing those who swim in its depths on a full moon into werewolves, not creating ghosts that haunt our town!!"_  
  
 _"You misunderstand the question, Mister Alphonse,"_ Auror Strider said. _"She asked you about_ the History, _not the mythology."_  
  
 _"What does this have to do with you accusing me of a- attempted murder!? What!? Lulu's dead! We saw her ghost!"_  
  
 _"What you saw,"_ Detective Pawnee said, "Was Not A Ghost."  
  
 _"Lake Bearskin Wolf was known to be a blessed spring managed by spirits,"_ Auror Strider explained. _"Those who bathed in its waters under the light of a full moon were cured of all disease and injury."_  
  
 _"It was only some years later after the blessing began drawing in far too large of a crowd that the blessing was instead cursed by the spirits to add an additional affect- the Lycanthropy it is now known for,_ " Detective Pawnee added.  
  
 _"What- What are you saying--!?"_ Alphonse asked. "She's DEAD! I know she's dead! I-"  
  
 _"Murdered her and dumped her body before she was even cold into the lake on the night of a full moon?"_ Detective Strider asked, sounding as if he'd be raising an eyebrow in amusement from the tone of his voice. _"Yes,_ We Know. _Lulu Sanders told us."_  
  
"THEN SHE'S A GHOST!" Alphonse was growing hysterical now. "You can't take the word of a Ghost at face value!"  
  
 _"Just as you can't take a Spirit's desires at face value, either,"_ Detective Pawnee said. _"They saw you polluting their lake with a corpse and so resurrected the girl, healing her injuries when they granted her Lycanthropy as well."_  
  
"Wh- What do you---?"  
  
 _"The 'Ghost of Lulu Sanders' you've been seeing around town, Mister Alphonse is nothing more than the girl herself exacting her taunting revenge upon you, you foul priest!"_ Auror Strider declared. _"Her 'apparitions' revealed such things as the secret tunnels leading from your room in the church to the hallways just outside of the hotel room that Lulu Sanders was herself staying in the night of her disappearance!"_  
  
 _"But- But--!"_  
  
 _"She told us_ what you did to her that night," Detective Pawnee said. _"How you-- Why you killed her after she refused to submit to your demands."_  
  
As Alphonse went off on some shrieking tangent of how he should have gotten away with it, Luna observed the reactions of the students listening.  
  
Grins and cheers- claps and smiles- lots of enthusiastic whoops and shouts for the victory of the Heroes...  
  
Ginny just sat there, staring blankly ahead at the radio, a distant look on her face like she wasn't even listening.  
  
Luna looked towards Fred and George who seemed just as confused-and-or-disturbed by this as Luna felt.  
  
"She's never had an interest in these things as far as I know?" Luna would offer when one of the twins asked her if she'd known about any kind of interest in this from Ginny. "What of you?"  
  
The other twin replied, "We just knew she was down here meeting a Wireless group, but... not what they were listening to."  
  
And so they waited for the radio show to end and for the group to disperse.  
  
Ginny wandered out of the room, somewhat in a daze, and Luna decided to approach her first, deciding to use her most friendly-but-not-concerned voice she could use, despite the concern that was indeed welling up inside her chest.  
  
"Hullo, Ginny! It's been a-" Luna stopped when she saw Ginny didn't even pay any attention to her. So much so, infact, that they literally bumped shoulders and Ginny didn't even react to it audibly.  
  
Luna turned to look after the girl, blinking in confusion. "That's... not right? Ginny? Hello?" She went after her friend, reaching a hand out to touch Ginny's left shoulder--  
  
Ginny reacted to THAT- her right hand snapping up to grab the hand seconds before it touched- and Ginny turned her head, leveling a scowl in Luna's direction.   
  
"Leave me alone," she said, releasing Luna's hand and then stomping off with more emotion than she'd shown all afternoon so far.  
  
Fred and George went after Ginny themselves at that point, and Luna considered any number of things that could have driven Ginny to act in such a way.  
  
...She went to talk to some of the familiar faces among that radio group that she'd recognized from the Ravenclaw dorms.  
  
"Eh? Ginny Weasley?" A fifth year asked. "Just showed up suddenly one day and listened into the radio group. Hasn't missed a show since but she doesn't say much."  
  
"No, I can't say she's ever talked to anyone," a sixth year said, "Though, that snippy attitude does sound familiar a bit. I think Pasqual tried talking to her once and got glared at."  
  
"Ah, yeah," Pasqual, a seventh year, nodded with a wince. "I tried to warn her it was a dark show she was listening to but she just gave me this look- suddenly she wasn't all vacant eyed but... Mean kinda? I dunno what's with her, but you're saying that's new behavior? Weird."  
  
Luna was inclined to agree. It was quite a weird situation to suddenly find herself in.  
  


* * *

 **EARTH. SEPTEMBER 26TH, 1993. LUNA'S HOME.**  
  
Luna had to put off installing MYST to the next day thanks to the detour involving Ginny, something that was weighing heavily on her mind as she looked at a progress bar slowly climb across the screen.  
  
Ginny's sudden change in behavior was... astonishingly quick, really. Something was off, but Luna couldn't dare gauge what it was without more information.  
  
She had that feeling down in her stomach's pit, much like her Father had had at the train station. Something was wrong, but whatever it was wasn't immediately obvious.  
  
BING! The game had finished Installing.  
  
Luna checked the time...  
  
"I think I've got enough time to start it up and make sure it works, atleast," Luna nodded to herself and clicked the new executable icon on the desktop.

[The desktop went blank, and a logo began swirling into view.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6PWvJc8srk&feature=youtu.be)

"Broderbund...?" Luna blinked, and recalled it was the publisher, likely.  
  
Then came a happy jingle of a tune as the camera inside of a small circle panned over a large field, climbing up a mountain and then... was capped by an orb.  
  
CYAN appeared beneath the image as it rotated to vaguely form the shape of a C.  
  
Luna had mixed feelings about such a happy, whimsical jingle being associated with the story of her family in any way. But it was certainly quite a ear-worm of a tune.  
  
And then a heavy drum beat rifted out of the speakers, and the letters spelling out the word MYST spun into frame.  
  
Luna felt chills run down her arms as the Intro played on- an eclipse opening up inside a field of stars, highlighting the shape of the Fissure as a man began to narrate.  
  
 _"I realized the moment I fell into the Fissure that the book would not be destroyed as I had planned."_  
  
A figure leaped into view, holding a book, and linking away-- and Luna had a feeling she knew who was supposed to be speaking.  
  
 _"It continued falling into that Starry Expanse of which I had only a fleeting glimpse."_  
  
The Myst Book Fell towards the camera, blacking it out as Atrus, or someone playing him rather, spoke.  
  
 _"I've tried to speculate where it might have landed. I must admit however that such conjecture is futile."_  
  
The Book fell past credits of people who'd worked on the game.  
  
 _"Still, questions about whose hands might one day hold my Myst Book are unsettling to me."_  
  
Luna couldn't believe it. They knew about the Fissure- they knew about the Book- HOW?!  
  
 _"I know my apprehensions might never be allayed, and so i close, realizing that Perhaps the Ending has Not Yet Been Written."_  
  
The book landed in the dark, and wind could be heard howling in the breeze.  
  
A cursor appeared on the screen, shaped like a hand, and Luna swallowed as she took it all in.  
  
The D'ni Resotration group had to have found something to get even this much right. It had to have been one of Catherine or Atrus' journals. Maybe both...?  
  
Finally, Luna reached for the mouse, and moved it- the hand followed suit, as she dragged it towards the book.  
  
Music played once more as the book popped up in view, linking panel dark with rippling textures at first...  
  
No, it was the sea. A horizon line came into view, and then an island emerged from the mist... no. MYST.   
  
The island was the same as the cover, far too small, but it... it looked like the island.  
  
The panel panned over the island, giving a view of it all, and Luna could only swallow down trepidation as the camera came to rest upon the docks of Myst Island.  
  
The wind resumed, and on instinct, Luna moved the mouse to the pannel- the hand opened wide- and she...  
  
"How far did you go?" she asked the designers of the game. "How far did you take this?"  
  
She clicked.  
  
 _ **WWWARRROOORMMMSSHShshsshh...**_  
  
It was a horribly eight bit version of a link, but it was the SOUND.  
  
The screen went black, and then with a repeat of the warping noise, the docks appeared on screen, gears framing it in dead center, a sunken boat off to the right, and a door in the hill and a building on said hill to the left.  
  
"That far," Luna answered her own question. "You really went that far."

* * *

 **THE WIZARDING WORLD. SEPTEMBER 29TH, 1993. HOGWARTS.**  
  
It was out of sheer desperation trying to find Luna Lovegood to ask her to try talking to Ginny again that had Fred and George checking The Map when they'd realized an impossible thing.  
  
Luna Lovegood was not on Hogwarts grounds.  
  
Oh, sure, she appeared just before lunch break ended, but... how had she vanished in the first place?  
  
 **SEPTEMBER 30TH, 1993.**  
  
Asking around had found that Luna had a mixed reputation among her House- the muggle born witches and wizards found her perfectly fine and charming, while the wizarding world born witches and wizards found her off putting and seemed to talk like a conspiracy nut.  
  
That Luna's father apparently was the owning manager of a quack sounding magazine called the Quibbler was probably a deciding factor in that regard, Fred supposed.  
  
George, on the other hand, found out that the Syltherins had a bit of a grudge against her- they'd planned some revenge for the several minute hat stall during the Sorting, but hadn't been able to exact said revenge for the simple fact that Luna disappeared during lunch hours.  
  
It was a curious thing.  
  
Luna vanished at some point when they weren't looking, and reappeared just the same at lunch time's close.  
  
 **OCTOBER 1ST, 1993.**  
  
They watched the map carefully that day.  
  
They checked the map again, and after waiting barely a minute they saw that she'd pulled the same vanishing act.  
  
She reappeared in the same spot, just the same outdoorsy spot, right before lunch hour was over as she had the past two days.  
  
It was clear she had some trick off of Hogwarts grounds and a way back in.  
  
 **OCTOBER 5TH, 1993.**  
  
After several days of careful observations, using The Map as the key tool, the Twins watched, and waited...  
  
And they figured out there was a pattern.  
  
She'd vanish from differing places during the day right as the lunch hour began- all depending on her class schedule- but she always reappeared in the same spot.  
  
And so, loving a good mystery, Fred and George waited in that spot, over the course of the whole lunch hour, once they'd seen Luna vanish off The Map again. It was probably the longest they'd sat still to watch for someone and not even pull a prank on them!  
  
They waited silently in the shadows, watching that simple courtyard outside the castle grounds that nobody really seemed to use but Lovegood herself.  
  
And then...  
  
[ _ **VRRROOOMMMSSSHHSsHhhssshhh...**_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7t93tRrM9Y)  
  
A sound echoed through the air. It was like a somewhat out-of-tune Port Key fired off, and then- Luna Lovegood was suddenly there.  
  
"It's a portkey?" Fred asked. "That's a tad disappointing."  
  
"She's got a portkey that takes her back and forth from Hogwarts, that's incredible, though!" George started. "Think about if we could store stuff off campus to use in pranks?"  
  
"Yeah, but it's not like she'd ever let us use it," Fred pointed out.  
  
"Oh, yeah, that's true, isn't it?" George nodded.  
  
They decided to keep it to themselves as they went about their days.  
  


* * *

  
 **OCTOBER 15TH, 1993.**  
  
"...Oh, come now, I'm sure I had that code right," She muttered, rechecking the notes to the sliders.  
  
...One notch off.  
  
Once she had arrived in the Selenetic age, she saved the game, shut down the computer, and headed back to Hogwarts through the book she'd moved to the computer room out of where her Father had left it for her. It was safer in here anyways.  
  
Luna sighed as she linked back into the plaza outside of Hogwarts castle.   
  
MYST was truly a remarkable experience- sure, the game was clearly condensed, and the idea of Trap Books would be terrifying if not for the obvious fact they were designed to be a limiting factor to provide a 'bad choice' in the game play.  
  
Luna knew what really happened to her Aunt's brothers, Sirrus and Achenar, and she could see why the games would change the story in that regard. She hadn't finished the game yet, but she could see how some people could possibly be tricked into thinking those two brothers were the only available options.  
  
Luna, of course, had her ancestor's notes to go off of. Her ancestor who'd never met the brothers until some 20 years alter after the fact. It was a strange choice to make, deviating from the history, but perhaps the game designers simply didn't know?  
  
No, it was likely they knew the truth depending on when the journals they were clearly referencing from had been taken. There was some clear translation bias going on as well, but...  
  
Well.  
  
Luna had it on good authority that the REAL Myst Island-- with added extra emphasis on the word Real-- was nowhere near this small, nor was it actually containing an actual Spaceship.   
  
Her distant family ancestor had kept that Book safe, and her family had continued to safeguard that Link to the island over the many, centuries it had been since then.  
  
If Luna wished to do so, right at this very moment, she could go open the Vault in her father's Library-slash-Study and take a look at the swirling, stormy skied image of Myst Island that lay beyond.  
  
But she didn't, beyond the obvious reason she was heading back to class. That place was dead- tragedy long since passed, now freshly visit-able in an abstracted format for those who bought the game and played it.  
  
MYST, for all its inaccuracies, was accurate Enough, which brought about concerning questions about the immediate future of D'ni, and the Wizarding World as well.  
Muggle Born Witches and Wizards who got enthralled with the game would be sure to discover that the Linking Noise from the game was similar, if warped, from what was heard when using Portkeys, or the Floo Network, or- anything that involved crossing the veil, really. Traversing that link and...  
  
Luna's thoughts returned to the old questions that had her Mother and Father working on something that had drawn the wrong eyes.   
  
How did the Magical World come to develop its own version of Linking Technology?   
  
Her father's leading theory was that some ancient D'ni had escaped long before the fall and gotten involved with the Magical community. Given Luna's family's own D'ni blood mixed in with surface born blood, it seemed plausible, at least, that the D'ni were involved somehow.  
  
Perhaps they'd seen the Surface Magic as a means of modifying the Art in some way?  
  
Luna's own theory, the same as her Mother's, was that it was pure accident. That the Mages of Earth had created their own Linking technology by accident, and did not themselves realize that they'd transported to another world. Thus, the linking back and forth between the worlds and sometimes within the same age that Witches and Wizards seemed to use without even thinking about it.  
  
Aunt Yeesha had her own techniques for violating that "D'ni Laws of Writing" but Luna had a vague idea just of where THAT had come from- though she was certainly promised the full story when she got older- and she knew that it was possible to do even with the books, so the Wizarding world stumbling upon it had some merit of being an accident.  
  
It really made the most sense over all.  
  
But that still left where the world was going to go in the future.  
  
D'ni would certainly get a spotlight shone on it. But the Wizarding World?  
  
...Luna had no idea how things were going to turn out.  
  


* * *

  
 **OCTOBER 31ST, 1993.**  
  
Speaking of not knowing how things would be turning out...  
  
During the middle of of the Great Feast of Halloween, Luna had noticed Ginny was absent- but so were were Ron, Harry, and their friend Hermoine. And it was only a few minutes after Ginny appeared at the feast, looking even more exhausted than usual, that a discovery had been made by those three that some of the Ravenclaws were calling the "Gryffindor Trio."   
  
The Discovery in question? Argus Filch's cat, Mrs. Norris, was petrified that Halloween night. And not only that, someone had painted a message on a wall.   
  
"The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the Heir Beware."  
  
Luna found it had a certain bragging flare to it. But really, who would waste their time petrifying a cat near a flooded bathroom?  
  
Still. Luna knew disasters were afoot now. The creeping feeling was back in her stomach.  
  
But, she knew how to prepare for this disaster at least, and had a set of reflectors packed away into a corner of her room at home.  
  


* * *

  
 **NOVEMBER 1ST. 1993.**  
  
"Luna, what are you even wearing?" Sally asked later that night in the dorm room.  
  
"During my family's travels," Luna said to her fellow Ravenclaws, "my father encountered some beasts that had petrifying gazes. The counter the locals had was to wear sunglasses with silver reflectors installed on the outsides." She tapped at the lenses she was wearing.  
  
"I dunno," Missy said, eyeing the silver spectacles Luna now had on. "That seems kind of far fetched."  
  
"Well, there are other means of petrification that could be caused," Luna offered. "However, I always carry a set of reflectors on hand because they have a few other uses as well. I figure I may as well wear them just in case I run into whatever it is. If I'm protected, then we know what kind of petrification is being used."  
  
"I think we all would rather be safe than sorry," Travis agreed.  
  
"You got any spares?" Sally asked.  
  
Luna did, in fact, have spares. At home.   
  
She offered, "Let me check my luggage tomorrow during lunch. I may have more squirreled away somewhere and I've forgotten."  
  
While her immediate friends were happy with the offer, a few others who overheard her remarks and explanations were hastily trying to replicate Luna's silvered glasses on whatever spare spectacles they may already have on hand.  
  
For a moment, Luna thought this truly must be what being a trendsetter felt like.  
  


* * *

  
 **NOVEMBER 4TH. 1993.**  
  
The Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, however, did not see it that way.  
  
"My Dear!" Gilderoy Lockhart admonished. "You should know better than to wear silver reflectors indoors! Why, anything that can freeze students solid can do that regardless of what eye wear you're wearing! Didn't you read the assigned homework?"  
  
"No," Luna answered, "I was reading through one of my great uncle's journals on his adventures building a mechanical fortress to protect people from sea pirates instead."  
  
It was the truth- she'd copied a translation of one of Great Uncle Atrus' Mechanical Age Journals to read at night here at Hogwarts so she could compare what was in the game with what was in reality.  
  
As always, the game seemed to curtail most of the extraneous details to just the most relevant and interesting things. Her Great Uncle had a habit of writing far- FAR too much for his own good at times.  
  
Even so, it made for a better read than anything she'd read so far in Lockhart's so called 'textbooks.' Or for what she'd actually learned from the man here in class- rather he seemed more puffed up on his Ego than anything else.  
  
"Hahah! What an active imagination!" Lockhart laughed. "But surely your Great Uncle's adventures are exaggerations. Silver eye-wear is—"  
  
"Something my father proved against the Stoneeyes of the Infinite Statues," Luna substituted Age at the last moment with practiced ease, "Region."  
  
"Never heard of it," Lockhart said, flatly. Luna gave him an equally flat look from behind the reflectors that was blocking her eyes from his sight.   
  
"Of course you wouldn't," Luna said, feeling a bit trollish. "He burnt the book afterward so nobody could get stuck there."  
  
"He... did what?" Lockhart asked.  
  
"It was a Portkey in the shape of a book. He burnt it. It's not that hard to understand, really," Luna said.   
  
Lockhart had no idea how to respond to that in class other than giving her a detention.  
  
Over. Lunch. All. Weekend. Until. Monday.  
  
To read the lesson she'd evidently missed out on by skipping it.  
  
How annoying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, that radio play is a nod to one of my Hiveswap fanfics (Which sadly only exists as radio fiction in this timeline) AND the Homestuck Classic meta-fic "Detective Pony;" it's playing double reference here. 
> 
> Also. Yeah. The Wizarding World is really kind of lagging behind in the times. That whole radio play segment was uncomfortable to write. 
> 
> If this scene didn't have a purpose of showing the Diary's influence over Ginny... And that people were NOTICING the oddity now given that Harry and Ron didn't get detention'd over the Car and Willow Incident... well. I'd have skipped it otherwise. I may fiddle with it a bit more, later.   
> \---
> 
> Luna installs MYST for the first time and gives it a test play. 
> 
> The INTRO. Just. THAT INTRO. It gets you every time you hear it.
> 
> \---
> 
> Extended/revamped take of Fred and George watching Luna with good reason this time, 'cause she talked to them about Ginny, because Ron talked to her about Ginny. 
> 
> Because the Weasleys aren't distracted with that whole Car Accident Thing. 
> 
> Amazing what a single butterfly flap can accomplish, yeah?  
> \---
> 
> Luna theorizes a bit- another revamped scene. Not much to say here.
> 
> \---
> 
> Mild tweaks were done to the Lockhart detention scene to give Luna a bit more sass that would irk him into a detention giving mood better. Also, tweaks made to the timeline to better make it flow with canonical events of Chamber of Secrets. 
> 
> Soon, the First Quidditch match of the year, and one of THOSE SCENES that makes me wonder HOW this was considered a Kids Book Again??? (It's nothing on Animorphs, I'll give it that, but still, like- Oh. YEESH. How did they get away with that?)
> 
> ...I'm seriously considering bumping up the rating a bit.


	4. Quidditch Quandry.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA: That chapter that Harry breaks his arm off screen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW:  
> Canonical Arm Breaking and Bone Vanishing.  
> ...Yeah no, I don't know how that got published in a Kids Book to begin with either.   
> Petrification of Students.  
> Loss of time/Horcrux possession aftershocks.

**NOVEMBER 6TH. 1993.**  
  
It was a Saturday, and as Luna read through Lockhart's books she found... 

Yes, the Sorting Hat had been quite right that the books deserved a tumble.

It wasn't anything impressive, Luna figured, having caught onto the inconsistencies rather quickly. He was referencing events in one book that she was cross-checking and finding they happened within impossible time-spans in another. Two adventures were even happening simultaneously.  
  
If anyone was exaggerating anything, she figured, it was their Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Luna would have said nothing on the matter, though, preferring to keep it to herself... if not for Lockhart's very visible frustrations that she wasn't fawning over his feats.  
  
After half an hour of this, he finally caved and asked her why she wasn't astonished by his celebrity- not in so many direct words, of course. He'd framed it in a "What are your thoughts on the matter?" sort of way that was half implied he was trying to get her to compliment him, which was a mildly annoying and disturbing thought.  
  
Thus, Luna was forced to answer as if he had said it in so many words because it was obvious what he was rooting for, and she wanted this horrible day to be over as quickly as possible.  
  
"It's hard to believe your stories are real when I can spot the Artistic Liberties your editor took with the events," Luna said simply, emphasizing the specific words so as to not come off as accusing her teacher of anything nearly so crude as to have possibly made up ALL of his adventures. Surely the School would never let a fraud into a teaching position, after all.  
  
Lockhart froze- skin going pale at that. She almost thought he'd been petrified if not for the beady thread of his throat trying to work up a sound. Finally, "Artistic Liberties?" he quoted, having caught on her emphasis exactly as she'd hoped he would.  
  
"Yes, it's quite like seeing true events adapted into—" what was an equivalent to a video game? Oh, yes, that would work nicely— "A play, within which the stage is clearly faked and the people on it are over telegraphing their emotions with none of the intended subtlety."   
  
Lockhart blinked- rapidly. Did he not get it?  
  
Still, Luna smiled at the shell shocked professor, and said, "It's not a problem. They make for better stories that way." Really, how did he not understand what was going on here? "However, I'm finding it hard to parse out what the original events were through the editing process. It's quite slapdash in places. You ought to hire a better proofreader and editor, I'd imagine. Why, with writing like this, if it had the power to alter reality, I'd imagine everything would collapse in on itself from the contradictions after enough time had passed."  
  
Okay, that was probably laying it on a little too thick, there, better backtrack a little.  
  
"A good thing this book isn't capable of rewriting reality, isn't it?" Luna asked. "You might cease to exist if it did."  
  
That shook Lockhart out of his stuppor. "I'll..." he swallowed. "I'll have a word with my editors," He was sweating profusely now. He clearly needed a towel. "Tell them to tone it down a bit."  
  
"Of course. May I be excused for class early?" Luna asked.

Lockhart nodded, letting her go.  
  
She headed out of the classroom and exhaled, tiredly.   
  
Really, how had nobody noticed how badly his stories stacked up? Figuratively and literally, given the earlier incident at the book store.  
  
Her stomach grumbled, and figuring she didn't have time to eat a snack at home while playing the game, Luna detoured to the Great Hall.  
  
Luna swore internally as she saw the festivities when she arrived- as she realized a critical fact:  
  
Tomorrow was a Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Slytherin- THE Opening Match of the season. The whole school was to attend.   
  
Atleast she had an excuse to not attend Lockhart's insane detention concept.  
  


* * *

  
 **NOVEMBER 7TH. 1993.**  
  
Luna was neutral on the sport of Quidditch. Like most contact sports, Luna thought it wasn't much fun at all. There was always significant risk of injury.  
  
It didn't help matters any that she didn't understand the rules much either. Oh, it had been explained, but honestly she just didn't care to really memorize them. Now GEMEDET. Now THERE was a stimulating game! She should see about making a gameboard as a school challenge and see if she could--  
  
"Hey, what's that? Something's up with That Potter Kid! He's flying weird!" Sally said suddenly.  
  
Luna looked, and frowned.  
  
Oh. Hrm. It seemed the Bludgers had an unhealthy fixation with Harry Potter's broom.  
  
"Oh." She said, suddenly comprehending that thought aloud "It seems the Bludgers have a VERY unhealthy fixation with Harry Potter's Broom!"  
  
Indeed, they were going after him to the expense of everyone else.  
  
Malfoy was laughing at Harry's expense, as far as Luna could tell. Everyone else was realizing something was up. The Weasley Twins were flying in, trying to intercept the rogue balls where they could. Harry was dodging like crazy and-- No, he was diving away from them now like a seagull spotting a fish on the ocean's surface.  
  
And then he went out of Luna's sight, and she missed what happened as everyone around her stood up, gasping sharply.  
  
"What happened?" Luna asked.  
  
"Oh Merlin!" Travis gasped, covering his mouth. "He crashed!"  
  
"The Bludger hit him and he crashed! His arm looks-! Looks---" Missy half fainted from the row behind Luna, nearly crashing ontop of Sally.   
  
"Woah!" Sally caught the girl. "Geeze, Missy...!"  
  
And then Travis exhaled in relief, "Oh good, there's the teachers there to--" he stopped, frowning. "Wait. What?"  
  
And then there was much gasping, and Luna didn't dare ask, because Missy groaned out instead, "What happened?"  
  
"...Professor Lockhart liquefied Potter's arm," Sally answered with a bit of revulsion.  
  
"Also," Travis said, "Harry ate the Snitch."  
  
Luna was suddenly very glad she'd decided to remain seated.  
  


* * *

  
Luna arrived at what she privately was calling the Owl's Guild of Messengers Baracks to borrow an Owl to send a letter to her father-- only to pause in the act of attaching said letter that he was off in another Age. That strange one Aunt Yeesha had mentioned had some creatures that could link at will, and her Father had wanted to investigate and study and...  
  
"Come to think of it," Luna eyed the Owl she'd chosen, "don't you travel between the worlds as well?"  
  
The Owl tilted its head at her, as if she were stating the obvious.  
  
Owls could be sent between the worlds. They weren't enchanted to do such so that meant that they had to naturally have the ability to Link themselves, didn't they?  
  
"It's worth a try, I suppose," Luna said, securing the letter to the Owl's legs. "I need you to deliver this to my father, Xenophilius Lovegood, and if you cannot find him, my Aunt, Yeesha."  
  
The Owl ruffled its feathers, hooted, and then took off to the heavens.  
  
Luna gazed after it, watching, watching...  
  
It hovered in the air for a long moment... and then...

 ** _vwooosh_**  
  
Yes!  
  
It faded away mid flight. A Link!  
  
She had to tell her Aunt the next time she saw her!  
  


* * *

  
Luna was wandering down the halls that night and was passing by the infirmary when she heard a commotion of teachers talking in harshed whispers.  
  
She braced herself, and peered inside.  
  
There was Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall, and the nurse, Madam Pomfrey, dealing with a petrified student who held a camera in hand up to his face.  
  
"Dear lord, what happened to his camera?" McGonagall asked as they pried it loose. "The glass lense is practically melted!"  
  
"Check the film," Dumbledore said, "Young Colin may have caught our perpetrator."  
  
McGonagall opened the camera, and a poof of smoke exited the device. "Ah! What in the--?" She swore something that students were clearly not meant to hear. "The film has been burnt to a crisp!"  
  
Luna blinked upon hearing that.   
  
That narrowed down the list of potential subjects greatly to--  
  
Luna's ears caught sound of tiny feet running away, and Luna turned, watching as a House Elf sneaked away into a ventilation shaft. Curious!   
  
Luna hurried over to the vent, and peered inside, her silver lensed glasses reflecting scant traces of light into the darkness.   
  
"Dobby, I presume?" Luna asked into the dark...  
  
Nothing was said in response.  
  
"I'm afraid I must ask you to cease and desist if you were the one behind today's accident?" Luna offered.  
  
Once more, nothing was said.  
  
Luna considered climbing into the vent after the House Elf, but A: It was likely long gone, and B: Luna didn't want to get down on her hands and knees to climb around in a vent of unknown interior material or cleanliness. She'd have to wash her hair rather thoroughly if she squeezed through that vent.  
  
"...Oh well, I tried," she said, standing, and then turning to leave.  
  
As Luna headed down the empty halls and corridors, she spotted Ginny exiting a bathroom, running a wet towel across her face.  
  
"Oh, Hello, Ginny," Luna called out.  
  
Ginny pulled the towel away, blinking much like an owl at her, but there was life in her eyes. "Oh. Luna. Hello. It's been a while hasn't it?"  
  
"I'll say," Luna said. "You didn't seem quite eager to talk the last time we ran into each other."  
  
"Sorry, I..." Ginny frowned. "I don't think I remember that?"  
  
Luna frowned. "Ginny, do you know what day it is?"  
  
"Um... Something in October?" Ginny answered.  
  
"It's November," Luna answered. "Tomorrow's the eighth."  
  
Ginny frowned. "That... That doesn't seem right. I swear yesterday was just the... the..." She frowned. "No, wasn't it September instead?"  
  
Luna felt her heart skip a beat. "Ginny, maybe I should take you to the nurse to-"  
  
"No!" Suddenly Ginny was mad again, but if faded quick. "No. I'm- I'm fine. I just... I need a nap, is all. Today was a rough day. I'll talk to you later!" And then she ran off down the hall.  
  
Luna frowned, watching her friend leave.  
  
"That's... not good," Luna said simply.  
  


* * *

  
 **NOVEMBER 8TH. 1993.**  
  
"Thanks for the heads up, Luna," Ron said as she finished explaining to him what happened the night before. "I'll write home to Mum and talk to Madam Pomfrey to see if they know anything about memory troubles. That's... Merlin, just what we need ontop of all of this Petrification business." He ran his hands through his orange hair. "Mum's going to be upset when I let her know what's going on."  
  
"I'll keep an eye out on Ginny during our classes," Luna promised. "If any more trouble crops up, I'll let you know." She paused as something occurred to her, "Actually, I have a question."  
  
"Huh?" Ron asked, "What's that?"  
  
"Did you notice anything odd with your sister after the incident at the bookstore?" Luna asked.  
  
"Ah? Were you there?" Ron asked.  
  
"I got burried by books," Luna answered simply.  
  
Ron nodded, accepting that, and thought back. "Actually, yes. She seemed kind of off after we got back home. But then again most of us were after all those books falling on everyone, and after Harry got a bad taste of Floo powder too..." he frowned. "I think I caught her looking at this journal that night, though. Weird, black looking thing. Kind of gave me the creeps. I figured she must have bought it when we weren't looking- or it fell in her cauldron during the whole collapse."  
  
"I think I saw a black book like that, that day," Luna said. "If I'm remembering right, I think that Malfoy boy was trying to drop it inside someone's cauldron right before everything went down." Now that she was thinking on it. "The last I saw, it'd hit the ground before all the other books came down ontop of me."  
  
Ron frowned. "Malfoy, you say?"  
  
He looked around the outdoors hallway, before looking to Luna, and saying, "Come tonight. There's something you have to see. Moaning Myrtle's Bathroom."  
  
Luna blinked. "Tonight? Alone?"  
  
"No, not alone," Ron glanced around again. "Harry and Hermoine are going to meet us there too."  
  
...Luna felt that nudge in her soul. Something was about to go off the rails, wasn't it?  
  
"Alright," Luna nodded. "I'll meet you there."  
  


* * *

  
The Second-floor Girl's bathroom commonly known as Moaning Myrtle's Bathroom was home to one of Hogwart's many ghosts.   
  
A girl named Myrtle had died in 1943, apparently, and she'd gone and haunted some other girl before being forced to reside in the bathroom she'd died in.   
  
Needless to say, finding that Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermoine Granger were using said bathroom as their secretive brewing spot to make Polyjuice Potion was... something more of a shock than meeting the ghost that owned the bathroom itself.  
  
"We think Malfoy's the Heir of Slytherin," Harry explained. "So we're going to sneak into the Slytherin dungeons pretending to be friends of his, and ask him questions."  
  
Luna took that all in for a very long moment, rocking back and forth on her feet. Behind her silver tinted specs, she allowed her eyes to widen at the audacity of it all.  
  
"Given what she told me earlier about what she saw at Flourish," Ron said, "I think we might be dealing with something different, but we still need to ask the prick about his plans."  
  
"What's different than Malfoy being the Heir?" Hermoine asked.  
  
"I was thinking about the situation with Ginny," Ron said. "What if Malfoy... what if he did something to a book to make it mess with someone's mind? If that git's hurt my sister any... Intentionally or not... We gotta find out what that is, too."  
  
"So... where does she fall into this?" Hermoine asked, looking at Luna. "I've only brewed enough Polyjuice for the three of us and adding more to the mix now might set us back even longer. As it is we'll have to wait until Christmas."  
  
"I can offer you some anti petrification sunglasses," Luna said, pulling a set out of a pocket. "That way you won't run into whatever it is on your way back and forth."  
  
"Oh, so that's why the Ravenclaws have been wearing those lately," Harry said, taking a set, and looking at them. "I don't know if I'll be able to wear these over my glasses, though."  
  
"Don't worry about it," Ron said, taking a set for himself. "I think I know how to do something like this."  
  
"Since when?" Hermoine asked.  
  
"Since Mum taught me a spell to make the silverwear shiny," Ron answered.   
  
"Why would she-?" Harry started to ask.  
  
"She teaches all of us in case one of us inherits the set when we're older," Ron said, with a roll of his eyes. "It's one of the first things she makes sure we learn, for some barmy reason."  
  
"That could work," Luna said. "Or you could just wear them over your normal glasses if you can make them bigger. That works too."  
  
"Transfiguration would work, too," Hermoine mused, taking the last set of offered glasses. "Still, intriguing concept, at any rate. Are you sure this will work against whatever it is that's petrifying everyone?"  
  
"More certain after hearing about poor Colin," Luna said. "Apparently the film in his camera was burnt to a crisp. Silver powder is in that kind of film and it sounds to me like the whole roll got caught up reflecting the magic around inside of itself for a bit."  
  
Harry straightened to attention, "That was pretty much it, yeah," he looked at her, slightly concerned. "Where did you hear that?"  
  
"I have my ways," Luna answered, mysteriously. "Truthfully, though, I overheard the Professors in the room when I walked by that night."  
  
Harry relaxed a bit at that, though he seemed a bit down. "Poor Colin. He just wanted an Photograph, I'll bet."  
  
Sensing a moment to help lighten the mood, Ron put on the glasses, and said, "Woah! I can see right through them as if they weren't even there!"  
  
"They're like one way mirrors," Luna explained, rolling with the change of subject. "Except enchanted to work somewhat differently. Only certain things get let through."  
  
She wasn't going to go into the exact specifics of it, not without risking alienating these three.   
  
Ron looked around, then, at Hermoine, asked, "How do I look?" He put his hands on his hips and puffed out his chest.  
  
Hermoine snorted, "Like a redheaded, teenaged James Bond."  
  
"No idea who that is, but I'll take it as a compliment!" Ron said.  
  
Luna looked to Harry as Hermoine tried not to laugh. Harry gave a small shrug.   
  
Luna said, "Well, you look as dashing as any of us do with them on."  
  
"I'll take that, too!" Ron grinned, enjoying the brief moment of levity.   
  
"Speaking of dashing," Luna said, turning to Harry. "I think I saw that house elf you mentioned before, the night you got hurt."  
  
"Yeah, he paid me a visit while my arm was regrowing," Harry grimaced. "Apparently the 'Danger' he was trying to warn me of was this Chamber of Secrets stuff."  
  
"Ah," Luna nodded. "Let me guess, assumption is he works for the Malfoys?"

"Easy money, there," Ron said. "No Chocolate Frogs for anyone for getting it right."  
  
"It's quite alright, I don't need more Chocolate Frogs anyways," Luna said. "I have enough at home to last me a lifetime." Or, well, atleast another few months.  
  
"Fancy that," Ron said, peering over the edge of the silver glasses as he pulled them down his nose a bit. "Let me guess, won a maze in a magazine?"  
  
"Something like that," Luna did the same, eyeing him from across the room.  
  
"Well, that's nice and all," said the ghost of Moaning Myrtle, "but I can't eat anything and now you've all made me hungry. I think I want to go cry."  
  
"Let me just check the potion one more time and we'll get out of your hair, Myrtle," Hermoine said.  
  


* * *

  
The four of them exited the bathroom shortly there after and headed down the hallways away from it.  
  
"So how did you know about these?" Ron asked, tapping at the glasses he was still wearing. Harry and Hermoine had gone without for obvious reasons in Harry's case.   
  
"Oh, my Father encountered some beasts in a wild age-" Luna backtracked and covered with a yawn. "A bit of Wilderness. Sorry. Tired."  
  
"It's fine, it's late," Ron agreed.   
  
"My Father encountered some stone-eyed beasts in the wilderness outside of a village," Luna corrected herself, "On one of his travels, I mean. The Locals used Silver to prevent from being turned entirely to stone. He kept that technique with him, and it's helped against a few creatures here and there that do similar."  
  
"I thought your father was just the editor of some magazine?" Hermoine asked.  
  
"No," Luna answered. "My Father's the owner of the company, yes, but he leaves the work to other people these days. He travels a lot- it's been something of the family business before the Quibbler was even a thing."  
  
"What about you," Harry asked, "are you going to travel when you graduate?"  
  
"Yes and no," Luna said. "I know where I'm going after I graduate. It's the same place my Aunt went when she hit that age, and her Father went when he was around our age, where his father was born, and his mother came to live before he was born." She smiled. "I can feel the place calling to me. Like to Like."  
  
"Where's that, then?" Hermoine asked. 

Luna paused- debating what to say.   
  
"Maybe around Christmas Break, I'll tell you then?" Luna offered. "It's a long story and I'm not sure I'm awake enough to tell it right now. Or..." She paused. "Honestly, it's just easier if I show you, and I know we don't have the time for it right now."  
  
They didn't argue with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've not got a lot to say r/n about a lot of things. It's been a less-than=productive week for me. lol.


End file.
